


Beyond the Walls

by helena3190



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Intimacy, Romance, Smut, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:14:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 53,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24653653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helena3190/pseuds/helena3190
Summary: Mikasa has adopted a simple, predictable and quiet life. As the personal guard for the Queen, she attempts to convince herself that the significance of this post provides enough purpose for her now that the world is free from titans. Yet without the comfort of her best friends or the chaos and camaraderie from days past, she struggles to find true contentment after the war. It is only Levi, whom she has developed something of an odd friendship with over the years, who challenges her on the lonely, directionless path she wanders.
Relationships: Levi Ackerman & Mikasa Ackerman, Levi Ackerman/Mikasa Ackerman, Mikasa Ackerman/Levi
Comments: 132
Kudos: 354





	1. Marigold Hues

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, welcome readers and other RivaMika fans! I have only seen the anime (just started to read the manga) so this story takes place in what feels like canonverse to me, but of course diverges. Since this is only a short story centering on Levi and Mikasa's friendship-evolving-into-romance, let's all just pretend this takes place after whatever finality occurs to end AoT? Can we also pretend Mikasa was eighteen when her and Levi first meet? When this story starts, Mikasa is in her later twenties. Hopefully the story sets the rest of itself up for you. :) 
> 
> Rated M for upcoming smut. 
> 
> Lastly, I wrote this far differently than I ordinarily write; sometimes clipped and in present tense to feel part of the present moment. Not sure that it will read naturally for you all, but I hope so.
> 
> Much love! xo Helena

**Beyond the Walls**

_Chapter One: Marigold Hues_

* * *

Amber skies make vibrant promises they can’t keep. Mikasa watches the remnants of the sunset; not because it’s beautiful, but because it’s a battle with a predictable end. Violent hues of red and blood orange rays make the last attempt on the front line, but an endless indigo already has the cavalry surrounded. The sun is defeated by twilight, a watchful full moon and starlight presiding over its surrender. 

From the vantage point on her private balcony, she waits for the streets to finish emptying of market sellers and civilian passersby. Most folks have homes to return to, families waiting for them. When it’s quiet enough that only a few patrolling MP’s remain, she leaps down without bothering to close and lock her patio doors. This far into the walls, it’s only the occasional breeze that offers relief during the humid summer evenings; and while there’s plenty of stupidity in Mitras, there’s no one quite stupid enough to snoop or steal from her personal quarters.

Years serving as the personal protection for the Queen have given her familiarity with each of the patrolling soldiers, but she hasn’t bothered to learn their names, just their schedules. Only a few of them attempt a nod or salute, most of whom she ignores as she progresses to the familiar outskirts of town. 

Even dressed in casual attire of a loose, silken tank belted into matching black pants, she’s not able to remain inconspicuous. Oriental features too rare, sharp cheekbones and stern gray orbs too serious, and a gait too graceful even with the light clink of boot heels. This close to the impoverished, nearing unspoken territory claimed by the Underground, she’s recognized as a soldier as easily as if the Wings of Freedom were still stitched onto her back. What they don’t realize is how much she prefers their openly distrustful gazes and discontented murmurs over the hidden hostility of those she’s forced to spend most of her time.

There are a few decrepit taverns she hasn’t been a patron to yet, but in no mood for a new crowd, she chooses a familiar hole in the wall with a tattered wooden sign labeling it as the Black Sheep Inn. Though she is alone, and has been since The Curse of Ymir took its toll on them, she imagines Armin and Eren walking beside her in protest. 

_Are you sure you want to eat here?_ Timid whenever he asks any question, even though he knows the answers just as frequently. 

_Y_ _eah, this place is a dump, Mikasa._ Viridian eyes flashing at her for half a second before turning toward a distraction. There was always something else that stole his attention. 

At this hour there are only the few regulars, none who pay mind to her entrance. Most are men without spouses, a few women with no safer place to be; it won’t be until later when the tavern fills with belligerent drunks and delinquents.

Dara, the owner, stands behind the bar with unwashed hair, ragged clothes and kind eyes. Counting lesser coins to prepare change for the night, she doesn’t lift her head in acknowledgement. 

“It’s just some chicken and peas tonight,” Dara greets, words warm but hoarse, the toll of incessant smoking throughout a lifetime.

“That will be fine.” 

Taking a seat at the bar, Mikasa can’t recall a time it wasn’t “just some chicken” on the menu, though whether it would be peas, carrots, or potatoes varied on the market prices. 

After finishing the count, Dara pushes the drawer to a close and goes back to the kitchen. A few moments later, she hands off a hot plate of the aforementioned meal accompanied by a rare addition of sweet bread with raisins. Mikasa opens her mouth to thank her for it, but Dara waves dismissively before she can get the word out.

“What’s it gonna be tonight, love?” Dara asks, turning back to the liquor display.

Though the soldier’s routine is nothing but consistent, Dara knows the choice in liquor depends on the young woman’s mood. One pint of ale if she’s had an easy day and doesn’t plan to stay. Whiskey with two ice cubes if something or someone has pissed her off. Red wine when the memories are haunting her. Whereas most men come in clamoring on about their piss-poor day or flaunting whatever reason prompted their grins, Mikasa was not discernible, nor expressive. 

“Wine, please.”

Dara pours the red wine and wordlessly slides the stemless glass in front of Mikasa’s plate, then moves onto the next customer. Mikasa knows it’s not the cheap liquor or bland food that has made The Black Sheep Inn her preferred dining establishment, but the owner’s lack of curiosity or need for conversation.

After clearing her plate, spending more time than necessary on the sweet bread, she nurses her second glass of wine. More patrons come, commotion and ruckus ensue, and Dara wordlessly pours her a third. When she’s on the last sip, considering whether or not to ask for another glass, she thinks of Eren. 

_Slow down, Mikasa. You’re making horse-face look like the responsible one._ A weak attempt to scold her, meant more so to make Jean sputter and fuss. 

She doesn’t get the chance to imagine what Armin would say next. 

“Darling, let me get the next one for you.”

Someone new, someone who doesn’t understand the rules. She glances at him without turning, offers no smile of gratitude, but nods in acceptance. He’s not too much older, has dishwater blonde hair, at least one absent tooth, and a dirt-streaked tan from days spent working in the sun. As if he’s already won a prize in a carnival game, he grins when tossing a few copper coins to Dara. He’s too focused on the quiet woman at his side to notice Dara’s unimpressed shaking of her head.

When the fourth glass is gifted to her, Mikasa does thank Dara. 

“You prefer to come sit with me, darling?” He stands, gestures for her to come with him.

 _Men_ , she thinks, too unsurprised to be sour. Most take what doesn’t belong to them; the others assume it can be purchased so that it does. 

“No,” she finally answers aloud. Her fingers coat the rim of the glass. “I prefer that you leave, though.”

He starts to stumble and stutter. She waits to see if it will be embarrassment, anger or both that cause the inevitable outburst, but then there’s someone old, someone who does know the rules. The intruder is whisked away and she’s given solitude again. 

_Shame_ , she thinks. Watching flustered reactions is a game to her as much as it is to them. 

Though she noticed him enter when accepting her third glass, its a few more moments before he leaves a table from the back corner to take up residence on the seat beside her. 

“Ackerman.” As blithe as usual.

“Captain Levi.” 

She doesn’t need to look over to see the slats of slate that are him reminding her how he feels about the retired honorific. 

“Didn’t think you were the type to let a man buy a drink for you.”

“It can be humorous,” she admits.

“How so?”

“When that’s all you let them do.”

“Hn.” The same curt acknowledgement as from when she’d just slain an exceptionally tall titan.

Dara spends a moment evaluating the newcomer at the bar before she greets him. To ensure the owner knows she doesn’t mind the company, Mikasa orders his preferred drink for him. 

“Whiskey neat, please.” She knows his favored brand, but there’s no top shelf to order here.

Dara knows better than to lift her brows in surprise, but pauses before nodding and then moves to pour the drink. Once it’s delivered to him, Mikasa turns to acknowledge her unexpected guest.

In civilian clothes too, though it’s impossible to describe them as casual with that damn cravat at his neck. White pressed linen, a black blazer made with expensive fabric and perfect stitching. Same precise undercut, a fringe of ink-black hair a curtain over disinterested eyes. Even though he’s the one who’s spent more time in the Underground, it would be impossible for an outsider to know it. For the first time she wonders if that is precisely the point of his extravagant attire. 

He doesn’t miss it, though. The mild disdain for his clothing veils her search to ensure there aren’t injuries beneath it. Eventually, she speaks first.

“I almost thought you weren’t going to say hello.” Unconcerned, but still, she’s curious. 

There’s a touch of surprise that crosses over him, a fleeting admission he thought his earlier arrival went unnoticed. Though he doesn’t voice it, she knows he wonders how she could have seen him with her back turned from the door.

Mikasa lifts a hand to the array of liquor bottles behind the bar. “Saw you when you first walked in.” 

Levi follows her pointed gesture to the reflection coming off burgundy red, absinthe green and cobalt blue glass. Despite himself, an ironic smile quirks at his lips. Once upon a time, he’d used the same sort of reflection to spot an Ackerman’s entrance into a bar, though the circumstances were markedly different.

“Didn’t want to interrupt your reveries,” he answers.

But he knows most of her reveries scream to be relieved, or at the very least interrupted, and she’s too buzzed to banter patiently with him. “What are you doing here?”

“Hange told me I would probably find you here.” He’s too arrogant to mask his contempt for the establishment when he scans the room. “Though I’m not sure for what reason. The quality wine?”

She matches his sarcasm when she sees him pause at the sight of the man who purchased her most recent drink. “That, and the quality suitors.”

A slight grimace, but it’s gone by the time he faces her again. “You don’t belong here.”

Mikasa frowns. Even though she’s invited to the Queen’s table for breakfast, it doesn’t mean she belongs there, either. “Alright, Levi. Where do I belong?”

This time she drops the previous title to remind him they’re not just peers, not just equals; they’re also in the same position. She doesn’t belong anywhere, the same as he does not belong, either.

Unlike her, he’s sober and patient. Levi makes some sort of apathetic grunt and takes a shrewd sip of whiskey, finding no reason to answer her.

It irks her. When it comes to her old captain, there’s often more that irks her about him than doesn’t.

“Why did you ask Hange where I’d be?”

“Technically, I didn’t ask. They assumed I wanted to know and told me.”

The blunt words might have held the capacity to sting, except she knows he did want to be told, or else he wouldn’t be here. Mikasa takes another sip of wine, but then reconsiders; after securing Dara’s attention, she asks for a glass of water instead. Knowing there are all sorts of fights she can win but verbal bouts with Levi are not one of them, she changes the direction of the conversation. 

“When did you get back?” 

He’s no longer a Survey Corpsman slaughtering titans, but still he travels beyond the walls to guide settlers, leading expeditions and helping build encampments. She hasn’t asked him, but she wonders if it is a sincere aspiration of his, or simply a distraction.

“Last night.”

“When are you leaving again?”

“Next week.” 

Too late in the effort of sobering herself, the clipped words leave without being filtered first. “What’s the point of coming back then?”

He tosses her a halfhearted glare, perhaps gracious it was the wine at fault. “I’m not allowed an occasional visit with old friends?”

Friends. It feels strange to consider Levi a friend; what she shares with him is not the familiar comfort of Armin’s presence or predictable interactions with Eren. But since they no longer served together in the Survey Corps, he couldn’t be labeled a comrade. They weren’t family, either. At first it wasn’t clear the Ackerman lineage, but sufficient research proved that while a shared ancestor might be at the top of the tree, their prospective families led them several, separate branches apart. Not comrades, not family - friends. 

Though it doesn’t seem the best description, she supposes it is the right one. Mikasa considers how she can probably count on one hand how many people knew her first by name, then the famed melodramatic moniker; he is one of them. Whenever Levi visits the inner walls, he makes a point of visiting with her at least once, sometimes even bringing back tea leaves or pressed flowers from her old home in the Shiganshina District. He probably has as few friends as she does, if she has to guess, and each of them remain within the walls. 

“You know, everyone thought you’d stay in the city and open a tea shop.”

Everyone being the few survivors from their squad. 

“You all appropriately estimated my love for tea.” Impressed at first, but then ending with a slight shake of his head. “But overestimated my willingness to engage with customers.”

Despite herself, Mikasa smiles some thinking of that; Levi offering a warm welcome when the door opened, happily making small talk while accepting coins, patiently watching the droplets of spilled honey and sloshed tea at tables busied with customers who held no interest in remaining clean. No, he had no patience or love for potential customers. 

“I suppose that’s true.”

Mikasa assumes it will transition to their usual companionable silence, but there is a discontent manner in his movements as he takes another sip of whiskey and slides his glass back down. He doesn’t look at her when he speaks.

“None of us thought you would settle in Mitras.”

“I haven’t settled.” She thinks of her personal quarters in the royal keep, a borrowed space she rents, not owns.

“You stand still and stare at a bunch of idiots every day, feigning significance to protect a Queen no one plans to attack.”

Mikasa’s grip on her water glass tightens. “You read the research, same as I did. We were designed to protect the throne.”

“Oh please, Mikasa.” Unimpressed by the patriotic sentiment. 

The holier-than-thou attitude that used to make her want to drive a fist into the side of his skull resurfaces with surprising ease. Before she can temper herself, he looks over to her, bored.

“First you lived only for Eren, and now only for Historia?” He makes a _tch_ noise that sets her blood to boil. “You’ve traded one scarf for another.”

It could be blamed on her inebriation, his smug attitude, or even the essence of her being that constantly aches for adrenaline provided only through an earnest fight. But she blames the godforsaken cravat that is just _asking_ to be yanked when she snags the linen from his neck. She pulls so hard that his unsuspecting head snaps forward. 

Her words are quiet, but fervent. “I’m not the one still wearing their scarf.”

It’s meant to be a blow beneath the belt, but he doesn’t cringe. If anything, there’s a glimmer of amusement in the stone-gray shades of his serene orbs that frustrates her even more.

“I know you’re not a woman who cares for fashion, Ackerman, but this is not a scarf.”

She can feel the countless pairs of curious eyes, and immediately there’s an uncomfortable knot in her gut. Dara ordinarily has a no-nonsense policy that prohibits bar scuffles that could develop into damaging fights, but the older woman is too surprised at the uncharacteristic display of wild temperament to put in a reprimand. Refusing to let embarrassment discolor her cheeks, Mikasa releases her hold. 

Levi is unbothered from the recent strangulation and simply readjusts the cloth. Though she doesn’t need the lecture on style, he tells her. “This is a cravat.” 

She finishes the rest of her water in one gulp. Nearby, she hears the murmurs of excitement from her recent display, and she takes out her wallet without another thought. It’s ordinary for her to overpay for the meal by double or even triple, but Mikasa presses even more silver coins on the bar in absence of an apology to Dara. Not finding it necessary to say farewell to the man who was far more intrusive than the one who bought her a drink, she takes her exit. 

“Mikasa.”

Without the undertone of arrogance, he says her name with such an ease of familiarity that she actually stops in her tracks. It’s a tone that suggests they are friends, yet reminds her again, it doesn’t feel quite like the right description. She doesn’t turn back to him, but pauses at the door.

“It’s Hange’s birthday tomorrow. I’m having a few people over on Friday evening to celebrate.” It isn’t an explicit invitation, but she knows he’s telling her to come. “Dinner is at seven.”

Mikasa pauses for another half second, and then exits the establishment.

 _Awe, you know he didn’t mean to make you mad, he’s just a little indelicate sometimes._ Too soft, too willing to see past others flaws, Armin would make excuses for him.

Eren would laugh, though. _That’s right. Leave him uncertain whether or not to make you a plate._

.

.

This time of year, this far into the walls, the heat is insufferable. Her hair doesn’t reach her shoulders, but still she lifts half of it back with a tortoise shell barrette gifted from the Queen. Mikasa searches for the thinnest material she can find in her limited closet and settles for a sleeveless, silken top and well-worn black skirt. 

Armin would compliment the dark red currant shade of her top. _That’s a good color on you, Mikasa._

Eren wouldn’t notice. 

She slips on sandals and sets off for Levi’s often-abandoned home, reluctantly forfeiting her quiet Friday evening alone. Not because she particularly wants to see her old captain again so soon after the recent altercation, but because if Eren and Armin were still alive, it's what the two of them would have planned to do. And she undoubtedly would have gone with them. 

.

.

She is late to Hange’s birthday festivities, arriving a half hour past the time when Levi stated dinner would be served. She has no doubt he had the meal prepared precisely for seven on the dot. Even from outside of his humble house, not too far from the old barracks, she can hear the thunderous laughter of a drunken Jean and excited shrieks of the previous Commander. Once she approaches the door, she recognizes the infectious giggling of Sasha and lower bass of Connie’s humored protests.

Though she doesn’t need it to count, Mikasa lifts her hand and curls each finger to her palm as she names them. Hange, Jean, Sasha, Connie; and then a brief pause, but she folds her thumb into her palm, too. Levi. 

These are all of her friends left, and she can count them on one hand.

Before she can knock, the door in front of her is abruptly opened. Unamused by her tardiness, Levi is prepared to scold her. “What’re you waiting for, brat? You’re already late.”

She drops her hand. “Sorry.”

Narrowed eyes follow the clenched fist that has fallen to her side. He then lifts a brow, but she steps past him to enter, and he doesn’t have the chance to ask.

“Hey, is that Mikasa?” It’s Jean who is the most excited, and she tells herself it’s because she’s the one he sees the least.

When Mikasa rounds the corner into the dining room, she is somehow surprised to see amidst the busied table of her friends and several dishes of food, there is one emptied plate waiting at the far right corner. The white porcelain and its accompanying silverware shine from a perfect polish. 

“It is you,” Jean exclaims, fast to leave his seat and encapsulate her with a hug. 

Though she offers only a sliver of the same affection in response, he doesn't seem to notice. “Come on, sit down. You aren’t too late for dinner. Captain Levi is a surprisingly good chef.”

“Just Levi now, Jean.” Tired now, surely not the first time he’s said it tonight. 

Mikasa offers a tepid smile to everyone, but she finds Hange first. “Happy Birthday, Commander.”

It is no longer their title, but Mikasa finds it is impossible to forfeit using it.

“Thank you, Mikasa,” Hange cheers, ale spilling from their full glass. “I’m glad you could join us.” 

Though he flinches, Levi makes no comment and promptly finds a towel to take care of the spill. Sasha knows better than to assault Mikasa with an unwanted embrace, but she gifts the other woman a smile with no less affection. When Mikasa takes the seat next to Connie, he places a brotherly hand over her shoulder. 

“We made bets on if you’d come or not,” Connie admits, releasing his touch. “Can’t say I’m sad to have lost, though.” 

Sasha groans at his impropriety, but Mikasa isn’t offended. “Who won?”

“Hange and Levi,” Jean answers, as though none of them should be surprised. 

Levi wears something akin to pride on his visage when he takes his seat across from her, but she looks only to Hange seated at his left. 

“And how much did you each win?” Mikasa asks with false frustration. 

But Hange pulls out their wallet and hands a few bills to the now smirking Levi. Confused, Mikasa turns to him. If Hange won too, why would they be forfeiting their bills? Taking the old commander’s cue, the rest of her friends cough up their coins or bills, too.

“To keep it interesting, I bet Levi double-or-nothing over whether or not you would arrive on time,” Hange clarifies sadly. 

Mikasa’s lips settle into a thin line watching Levi neatly fold the bills. Without looking at her, he says it simply. “I knew you wouldn’t.” 

One of the bills from Connie has a smudge of something sticky on it; perhaps jam from an earlier sandwich. Levi promptly loses his smirk, disgust apparent. Holding it from the tips of his fingers, he tosses the bill back to Connie, whose grin suggests he doesn’t mind in the slightest. 

There’s a brief moment where grief sinks heavily into her heart. If it came to betting about her habits and social tendencies, both Armin and Eren wouldn’t have lost. 

Whatever conversation had taken place prior to her entrance is fast resumed, some sort of debate on which abnormal titans from their past could be rated the ugliest on a scale of one to ten, and Mikasa listens but doesn’t help with ratings. Less out of hunger and more to distract from the pressing weight of grief, she takes a small portion from each dish Levi prepared. Grilled teriyaki salmon, white rice, steamed vegetables, and fresh bread and butter. The salmon must be from his most recent trip to the sea; briefly, she wishes she had arrived earlier simply to see if Sasha lost her absolute mind over its reveal.

Without prompting, Levi takes the decanter of red wine from the center of the table and pours her a glass.

Mikasa looks up at him, surprised. 

“Consider it an apology,” he says, too quiet to be playful. 

She takes the glass from him, her calloused fingers brushing over his scarred ones. Mikasa looks down at the wine, watching it swirl after an expert tug from her wrist. When she dips her nose in to smell the aroma, she’s for some reason not surprised to find it is more earthy than citrus, the kind she prefers. No doubt, it’s also an expensive vintage, perhaps taken from Erwin’s old collection for the special occasion of celebrating one of his old friends. 

“Consider it accepted.”

Mikasa ignores his subtle smile when she takes her first sip.

.

.

Enamored in the newness of their recently formed relationship, Connie and Sasha leave first, making some sort of excuse no one believes but everyone accepts regardless. Hange held no reservations on celebrating themselves to the full extent that a birthday allowed, but overindulging in liquor brought about a premature end to their own party. Levi set them up in the guest bedroom with a huff of annoyance that was less believable than the new couple’s reason for departure. Jean was the most reluctant to leave, though a commitment he’d made to help another friend at dawn forced him to be responsible enough to go.

After another embrace in farewell, he lingers. “Hey, you know next weekend is the summer solstice festival, we should hang out.”

“I think Historia will need me.” She says the words without remembering if the Queen has mentioned requiring her services.

“Right.” A hint of disappointment, but no less genuine of a smile. “Then maybe I’ll see you there?”

Nodding in farewell, she watches him leave and suddenly wonders how it’s come to be that she is the last person to remain at the party. If it hadn’t been at Levi’s own home, she would have at least beaten him out of the door. 

_You deserve to have fun every once in a while, Mikasa!_ Armin would flash a warm, uninhibited smile. 

_This isn’t Mikasa’s idea of fun. Fun is flying on ODM gear and slicing through the napes of titans._ Eren would say it as a joke, but he would be right.

Since she is the last to remain, or at least the last to remain sober and conscious, she busies herself with cleaning up from the dinner table.

“You don’t have to,” Levi tells her, meaning it. There’s an impressive stack of dirty dishes in hand as he heads toward the kitchen.

“Least I can do.” Mikasa collects the rest of the used silverware onto her own stack and follows him into the kitchen.

“No, least you can do is help me finish the wine,” he counters, a brief nod to what can’t be more than three glasses left in the decanter. “Erwin would kill me if I let it go to waste.”

It confirms her theory that it belongs to their old commander. “Thought you didn’t like red wine.”

“Depends.” 

Mikasa returns to the dining room to find her used glass and his untouched one, pouring a healthy portion for both of them. Only a few sips are left in the decanter. She makes a mental note that whoever finishes their glass first will have to honor Erwin by returning to them. 

Once back in the kitchen, she sets the glasses down and goes to Levi’s side. As though transported back to an older time, they fall into a familiar ritual of cleaning and drying dishes together. It’s been awhile since Mikasa has needed to clean so much dishware, and though she wishes there were two more of everything, it still provides some comfort. Even she has not been able to completely adjust to being so alone.

“Depends on what?” Her question comes several moments later, when the dishes are dried and stacked in his preferred methodical order, but he remembers the last point of conversation.

“The occasion.” 

He picks up the glass for the first time and studies it, seeing things she can’t see, remembering moments that tick on a different clock than her own yet sound very much the same.

“Erwin thought white wine was for frivolous affairs and entertaining guests.”

“And red wine?”

But Levi takes a sip of the wine and doesn’t answer her. Before she can determine whether or not to negotiate for a response, he exits the kitchen and she supposes she’s meant to follow. Over the years, she’s been to his home only on a number of rare occasions but knows the general layout of the first floor. There are large glass doors that overlook a wraparound porch and enormous backyard with hedges serving as a privacy fence. The first time she saw the backyard, she knew it was the reason he picked this house to own. Despite the cramped lifestyle within the walls, this view almost makes one forget walls even exist in the first place.

Levi takes his preferred seat on a handcrafted wooden chair and Mikasa is content to lounge on the swing bench, her legs gentle in starting the rocking lull, both hands clasped on her full glass of wine. There’s a gentle breeze that offers a slight relief, the cool touch welcome on the sticky nape of her neck and bare skin of her shoulders. Soothed by wine and the recent chaos of companionship, Mikasa allows herself to be content, admiring the starlight and quiet neighborhood. 

Instilled training from the years prior is what enables her to notice the slight movement; Levi tilts his glass onto his knee, as if inspecting the contents of the red wine for the first time. Noticing it caught her attention, he offers an explanation. 

“‘For the moments that matter with the people who do.’”

It’s been far too many years since Mikasa has heard their old Commander’s warm, authoritative voice, but she remembers Erwin vividly now through those reminiscing words. 

Though Levi looks to the starlight, she looks to him. It’s not the first time he’s said something that almost prompts a blush; but in her practical mind, she filters it through how she’d react if someone else said it. If Jean said it, she’d hear a romantic overture. If Connie said it, she’d know it was the bittersweet sentiment of an old comrade. 

Considering Levi’s blithe tone and apathetic disposition, she assumes it's the latter and turns to the stars, too. 

These days it only takes a few glasses of wine to dislodge the ordinarily stubborn and unspoken thoughts in her mind. As she sits with a half-emptied glass, she turns back to her quiet companion.

“You don’t approve of my post here, that I’ve taken the role as the Queen’s personal guard.” 

“You actually care what I think, brat?”

“No.” Though she means it to be a willful display of her independence, it has the opposite effect; she sounds childish even to her own ears. Mikasa sighs and corrects herself. "On certain things, I do.”

“ _Tch_.” Levi sends a warning glance. “I apologized for starting an argument in public, not for what I said.”

She clenches her teeth. “Excuse me?” 

“We’re not in public anymore, though,” he says, bored in his continuation, as though he can’t tell she’s already frustrated. “No, I don’t approve of your pathetic position; an outdated political figurehead at best, a decorative statue at worst.” 

It takes effort to unclasp her jaw, but she’s humiliated and drunk enough to seethe. “Who are you to talk? We were disbanded, we’re irrelevant, but you still go beyond the walls, as if there’s something significant to face, instead of endless, boring grasslands.”

They’re both fully aware it is not endless, boring grasslands; eventually, it leads to the coast and the sea. But neither of them has been able to consider life beyond the ocean, so neither of them find it prudent to mention now. 

“We fought to go beyond these walls.” He reminds her unnecessarily, blunt as a dull knife. “Not to keep cowering behind them.”

It almost knocks the breath from her. “You think I’m cowering?”

For the first time he looks at her; his words may have been dull, but his eyes are sharp as a blade. “I know you are. You’re not living up to your potential, Ackerman.”

Levi is adept at deciphering and predicting many things, including the variant moods and internal mechanisms of Mikasa Ackerman. It’s perhaps the reason he is one of the few, maybe even the only one, who can crack her calm facade with a few minced words.

Belatedly, it occurs to him he’s either gotten too complacent, or maybe the stretches of time between them have taken her further off than he’d noticed. While he anticipates a bark of laughter or snide remark, he instead sees her trembling fingers and the dip of her chin. There’s no scarf there for her to hide behind. 

“I didn’t ask for this _potential_.” 

She says it quietly, the only hint of passion from her earlier fury revealing itself in the way she makes _potential_ sound like a lethal curse. Because that same potential erupted from him, he knows hers came as a consequence no child should have had to suffer. 

Without her watching to notice, she misses the flash of concern in his widened steel gaze. She closes her eyes, forbids them to shed tears into wine that is special not because it's vintage or expensive, but because of whom it belonged to and how he wanted it to be consumed. 

“And I certainly didn’t ask to be one of the ones left living.” 

Her words are not melancholy, but the simple statement of an inner truth. 

Even though she hears the careful steps in his approach, she is startled when she feels warmth over her hands. His battle-hardened fingers wrap firmly around her trembling ones, an attempt to steady them. One, traitorous tear falls and she presses her lids tighter to halt the rest of them.

“Oi, Mikasa.”

Her shoulders tense in preparation to be annoyed by whatever verbal onslaught he plans next, but when she listens, his words are still serious yet uncharacteristically soft. 

“They wouldn’t want to hear you say that.”

She wants to bite back and ask who he thinks he means by ‘they’, but she knows he knows. Resentment rips out of her. “They would want to be here. Doesn’t matter though, does it?”

“It still matters to me what Erwin would think. It still matters to you what they would think, too.”

Not for the first time, she wonders if he talks to his ghosts the way she speaks with hers. Maybe it’s the wine, the recent admission, the searing pain of Eren and Armin’s absence, or maybe it’s the manner in which he still holds her hands tight within his own, but her shoulders slump in defeat.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, or what I should do next.” She glances up at him briefly, not for answers, but to verify their mutual understanding. “Every day, I can focus on just one day. If I think any further ahead, I - I…” 

It’s trust in this mutual understanding that gives her an assurance that even if she fails to verbalize the sentiment, he knows. He knows the struggles she has, but can’t voice aloud. Looking up to Levi, she lets the words die off. 

“Hn.”

He loosens his hold over her hands, a warmth she’s surprised to find she immediately misses despite the summer weather, but then he traces her knuckles, as if searching for scars and remembering when each of them were given.

“Here, every day is the same.”

He says ‘here’ like it is the object of disdain, so she knows he means here, not just within the city, but within the walls. 

“But out there?”

Her prompt is too vulnerable; it’s an accident when she lets it slip she’ll consider going beyond them. She wants to steel herself, to roll her eyes or release a scathing scoff; but instead, she watches his thumb trace over the raised scar at the base of her pointer finger. 

The breath he lets out sounds like laughter, but it isn’t the sort that is evoked by mirth. He releases one of his hands from her knuckles; she is almost startled when two of his calloused fingers rest under her chin. He lifts her face to look at him, and she isn’t able to see what else is in his steel-slanted orbs other than sadness, though she senses something stirs beneath them.

“Out there, every day is different.” Now, a brief quirk in his lips, as though it is bittersweet. “When every day is different, you have to at least think about the next day enough to prepare for whatever it might bring.” 

She sighs, another accident when she rests into the hold he has on her chin. For a split second his hand fans out, the back of his fingers brushing against her loosened jawbone, but then his touch is absent from both her cheek and her wine glass. When she reaches to touch her chin, she blames it on the instinctual habit from reaching for her old scarf. She drops her hand to her lap. 

“Queen Historia needs me here,” she says, her last excuse, one they both identify as weak.

“It’s true you’re worth a hundred soldiers,” he says, a mild-mannered grunt. “But if there’s anyone who can afford to replace you with a hundred good men, it’s the Queen.”

Out of excuses, Mikasa meditates on it. She finishes her glass of wine while Levi finishes his own. It’s to pay a debt she owes to Commander Erwin, not her current companion, when she mentions there are a few sips of wine left.

“All yours,” he says, disinterested. 

Together they return inside, the loss of the nighttime breeze and entrapment in the home almost immediately suffocating in comparison. Mikasa sees him take a turn to another room, but she returns to the decanter at the dining table. 

While Mikasa takes the remainder of Erwin’s wine, watching to ensure each drop makes a safe landing into her glass, she sees Levi resurface from the other room, a well-worn book in hand. For a moment it’s quiet while each of them look to the other person’s hand: Mikasa, with the last few sips of a precious wine Erwin never had the chance to taste, and Levi holding a book whose title doesn’t matter, because it’s not about the words on the page but the flowers pressed in between them. 

(No, not friends, Mikasa thinks vaguely as he slides the book over to her.) She is as gentle to lay the glass of wine down as she is to pick the book up, past precedents guiding her to open to the pages to find the center. (But is there a word to describe two people who share a similar, relentless grief and nurse each other’s wounds?) She admires the vibrant colors of three recently plucked dandelions, flattened from weight but not yet devoid of their marigold hues. (If there is a word that could describe what he is to her, she doesn’t know it.)

Her fingers graze over the soft petals, not wilted or dried just yet, and a hundred memories of _home_ surface to her mind. 

It occurs to her then that he’s come back with a variety of flowers over the years, different ones each time, yet this is the second time in a row she’s opened the book to see dandelions. Last time, did he see in her reaction what she didn’t speak? Another moment passes, but she shares her thoughts aloud. 

“These were Carla’s favorite. We told her they were weeds, but she loved the vibrant colors and simplicity of them. You know the wild bushes on the side of the house? The kitchen window overlooked them. Once, Eren and I trampled through them, we were racing or fighting, I can’t remember. It’s one of the few times I can recall her being upset with us.”

It takes focus and precision to handle thunder spears, but lifting the loose flowers without damaging them requires an even more attentive touch. “I’m not sure why they don’t grow here, but I’ve never seen them this far in the walls.” 

She lifts her gaze long enough to see Levi finish the last sip of his wine. Though she’s almost confident he doesn’t even like the taste of it, he studies his emptied glass regretfully, as if the longer he stares at it, the more he hopes for dark red liquid to appear from thin air. But it’s gone, just like Erwin.

Eventually, he turns to her. “It’s too warm here. They’re in bloom everywhere beyond the walls.”

Mikasa wonders if it is no coincidence that Eren’s father took up residence in a district nearest the outermost wall. Perhaps the dandelions were not just Carla’s favorite to admire, but his reminder of the life, opportunity, and truths beyond the wall. She looks at the soon-to-be-withered flower in her grasp and thinks of the rest of her collection of browning, dried flowers it will soon join. She is careful when she lays it back onto the meaningless page, and then she closes the book.

“Alright,” Mikasa says, almost to herself.

She tucks the book firm into her side and takes hold of her glass of wine as she approaches him, abruptly nervous, but excited to be a free woman making a choice, instead of a soldier adhering to a command.

“Alright, what?” Gruff, but not unkind.

With her free hand, she removes his emptied glass and places it on the table. “Alright, I’ll go with you.” 

“That’s not what I told you to do.” 

Levi is always blunt, but this time especially adamant, something akin to desperation in his visceral stare. She wonders if he has been responsible for the fate of enough soldiers for a lifetime; if his insistence now is because he cannot fathom to be responsible for her fate, too. 

Mikasa blinks, looks at him with an apathy he’s more used to seeing in a mirror. “You didn’t tell me. You didn’t even ask me.” 

He’s about to offer some additional level of protest, but Mikasa places her glass of wine into his hands, knowing he would not have taken it himself if she’d offered it. 

Drawn to it, the words halt in his throat and Levi looks down at the few sips left of Erwin’s wine, the ones he told her to finish but she’s given to him instead. The ones he wishes he had left in his own glass to sit with for the remainder of the evening. 

He’s made no request for privacy, but Mikasa knows all too well when the ghosts demand one’s full attention. With that, she makes to leave. She steps across the threshold, takes the first step into the front room, but he calls to her.

“Mikasa.”

Once again, it’s not just the use of her first name that makes her pause, but the manner he speaks it: half a declaration of protest, half a sigh in surrender. She wonders how this has become habitual for them - if it is because she is the one who leaves too soon, or if he is the one who speaks too late. This time, she turns back to face him.

Gentler now, he evaluates her retreating figure. “What were you doing earlier, outside the door?”

Mikasa looks at him blankly, uncertain what he means, but then he lifts his hand and mimics her earlier movement, a fist half-closed with the palm facing upward. She almost blushes, but the night spent in the company of those she still cares for has given her renewed strength. She lifts her own hand too, looks down to her curling fingers and whom each one represented.

“Counting,” she eventually says, too sad to be timid. “Counting how the friends I have left are on one hand.”

Levi looks at her hand and counts: Sasha, Hange, Jean, Connie, and Historia. That is five; they are the amount that fits on only one hand. For some reason, he finds his usual audacity is lacking when he plans to point this out. His clenched fist loosens and drops to his side instead. 

Her eyes flash when she notices. Before she can rationalize his movement or add doubt to her observation, she tells him. “The moment I swore the oath to protect her, she wasn’t Historia my friend, but Historia my Queen.” 

Levi is the fifth she counts. It’s impossible to tell if his exhaled breath is in amusement, appeasement, or something else. Mikasa focuses on the book he’s given to her, holds it tight between both of her hands.

“I’ll talk to the Queen tomorrow.” 

This time she leaves without interruption. On her walk home, she massages the spine of the book that protects the dandelions from her home, while Levi returns to his seat outside, a tight grip over the glass that hosts wine belonging to a man more like a lost father than a fallen commander. 

.

.


	2. Significant Number

**Beyond the Walls**

_Chapter Two: Significant Number_

* * *

Vaulted ceilings, pine wood banisters, and natural light filtering in through the large glass windows; Levi would have admired the place, if it weren't for the film of dust on every shelf and general assault on his olfactory senses. He could appreciate lavender hung in the laundry quarters, enjoyed basil with tomato sauce, relied on peppermint for headaches - but the conglomeration of varied herbs is an indistinct aroma that turns up his nose.

"What else?" Hange asks, hands skimming over the edge of each bottle in their repertoire.

"Nothing," Levi tells them, fitting the collection of medicine and first aid supplies they’re gifting to him into the small wooden chest. Then, noting his first response was too blunt, he adds, "You've been generous enough."

Hange is too busy checking over the supplies. "Oh! How much willow bark do you have left?"

"Enough for this trip."

Hange doesn't consider his response trustworthy; they turn, pushing their glasses further up the bridge of their nose while peering into the chest.

"That's half a bottle," Hange observes.

"Like I said, enough."

But Hange is dissatisfied, plucking it from the chest. "You're traveling with Mikasa, aren't you?"

His eyes narrow to watch the scientist's hands put together a supplemental concoction of the pain reliever. Uncertain what the two have to do with each other, but he nods. "Yes."

"Then I'm sure you'll be needing more," Hange says with a laugh, gesturing to the now full bottle, one eye widened from amusement. "Whether it's spontaneous or from sparring, I don't expect you'll make it out unscathed."

He lets them place the bottle back into the chest, uncertain whether Hange's prediction is based on his violent nature lurking beneath the indifferent surface, or Mikasa's volatile one that he is notorious for bringing out of her. _Perhaps both,_ he thinks to himself, buckling the chest.

Though he does not offer a response or seek clarification, Hange doesn't appear to drop the subject. They study Levi with the smug oversight of a curious scientist, and worse, a lifelong friend.

"What, shitty glasses?"

"Oh, nothing," Hange says in sing-song, feigning to be aloof. "Just grateful you asked her to go with you."

"I didn't ask her."

His forceful response is observed in their laboratory as an outlier phenomena compared to the rest of his ordinarily static and composed ones. Levi knows if it weren't for the eye patch, both of their brows would be lifted and wiggling; he inwardly curses himself. Before Hange thinks it acceptable to dissect him for his words, he takes hold of the chest and makes to leave.

"Here nor there," Hange says dismissively; even without looking back, he can tell they’re attempting not to smile. "It's a good thing she's going with you, is all."

Levi reaches the door, wishes he could leave without another word the same as he would if this had been anyone else, a stranger or otherwise. But it's not, it's Hange; one of his few true friends, their previous commander. So, he looks over his shoulder, offers a lackadaisical shrug.

"Yeah," he admits. "She needs a break from the mundane."

Hange's covert smile blossoms into an ornery grin. "Well sure, but rather, I meant she's good for _you_ , Levi."

Levi does not give them the satisfaction of anything but a bored glance, then nods farewell. When the large door swings from his exit, there's the light clinking of bells and Hange's jovial chuckling behind him.

.

.

.

.

What she opts to leave behind feels as if it weighs more than the luggage, equipment and supplies that she brings. The awards and accolades from wartime, pointless in purpose except for their reminder of times spent alongside Eren and Armin. Her beloved, tattered scarf, retired to the safety of her trunk once it became too threadbare to risk daily wear. The jade teardrop necklace that replaced it— Levi said he'd been "forced into the purchase" by one of those "insufferable market sellers", but what little she knew of her Oriental heritage told her the gem was authentic; rare to find, costly to purchase. Her collection of hair pins Historia handmade for her each birthday she spent in service to the Queen: pearl-infused, tortoise shell, delicate white lace, and even one trimmed with gold lacquer, all of them too exquisite for a rugged trip beyond the walls.

It's the moment when Mikasa's horse trots through the gates to exit Wall Sina, the clapping of hooves against cobblestone beneath her and the joyous spirits of caravan members surrounding her, that she realizes it has not been the heat that was suffocating her.

There's a sort of thrill in escaping what has become such an emptied, thoughtless routine of her life. The enthusiasm from the others is almost contagious; she finds herself eavesdropping on their excited exchanges, occasionally smiling at their childlike wonder.

For the first time in a long time, she wonders, too.

.

.

.

.

Maybe there are some fears that cannot be beaten into submission entirely. As a child born inside the walls with the continuous threat of mass extinction, Mikasa can't help the swell of concern that erupts in her gut. An endless expanse of grasslands, unclaimed territories, and quiet settlements reaching out to the breathtaking coastline, all of it overlooking the crystalline blue sea, full of salt and mysteries. What lays ahead isn't entirely unfamiliar to her, but still, it seems larger than life, larger even than the man-made walls.

It is no less difficult to reconcile logic with instinct now than it was when the truth of the titans unveiled itself years prior. Moving beyond the walls feels rebellious and dangerous, even when reality reminds her it is perhaps safer in the open wilderness than it is in the clutches of a corruptible government or the criminal underbelly of civilization.

Riding on horseback alongside caravans of a rather diverse, wide-eyed and curious crowd, she feels the absence of gear strapped on her waist, misses the billowing of her military-issue cloak behind her, and almost itches to hold weapons with far more power than the simple knives expertly hidden on her persona. Of course the most difficult pain to swallow is riding beside strangers, instead of Armin and Eren.

Still, there is a degree of nostalgia that is more comforting than grievous; the thrill of quickening her horse to sprint, the toss of strong winds blowing her hair behind her, an elevated mood from an activity far more invigorating than routine exercises in the walls. It doesn't take long before Mikasa realizes how sorely she has missed _moving_ ; whether it is moving in general or moving with purpose, she isn't certain.

It is also difficult to reconcile the branded visions of Humanity's Strongest in her well-cataloged war memories with the Levi she sees chaperoning the caravan now. Though he mostly attempts to keep to himself, there are many who know he is their guide and they apparently consider him approachable. It seems like there is always someone riding ahead to pose a question or asking for his assistance, keeping him busied and surrounded.

Mikasa does not present herself as approachable. Instead, she dedicates herself to holding the rear, occasionally breaking from the group's arrangement when she wants to ride alone or at her own pace. She makes herself useful, though; tearing down camp in the morning and setting it up each night is an ordeal in and of itself. She outmatches all of the men (except for Levi, naturally) when it comes to setting up tents and other temporary structures. She accepts their gratitude, but otherwise evades casual conversation and further engagement.

After the first few weeks of traveling, Mikasa surmises she's already done more than she has all year at the Queen's side.

When the sun goes down and a shared meal is passed around, she continues her new routine, to disappear from the social activities in favor of exploration or stargazing, returning to her private tent on the outskirts of the encampment once the others are asleep.

There is nothing else that can be considered routine, though. As usual, Levi had been right; depending on weather, terrain, and morale, each day requires a different strategy and there are always spontaneous adjustments. It is not comparable to wartime in the slightest, but admittedly, it keeps her on her toes in a way that tells her she had both feet flat on the ground for far too long.

 _You like it out here, don't you?_ Armin waits for her response, blue eyes sparkling, a gentle smile.

Eren, rougher but no less certain as he answers for her. _Of course she does. Bet you've neglected to admit it to Captain Levi though, eh?_

Mikasa has a feeling even though she hasn't told him, Levi already knows.

.

.

.

.

Butternut squash soup, a chunk of sourdough bread almost but not yet stale, and a handful of today's collected berries and nuts make for a surprisingly good dinner. Mikasa sits on the fringe of the crowd and finishes her meal with quick, deliberate bites, storing half the bread and nuts for breakfast tomorrow. She soon after takes her travel bag and slips out from the crowd, in search of the nearby river stream others had bathed in when camp was first settled. Though there is a distinct system in place to separate bathing from latrines, and men from women, she tracks the river's edge for several more miles, something akin to peacefulness resting inside of her on the long trek.

Her plan is to take a brief dip into the river to bathe, but the cold water is soothing, the genuine solitude and stillness a welcome reprieve. In the limited breaks of the forest canopy, Mikasa sees the stars in a vivid clarity that is not possible within the walls, where light, fire, and smoke from the cities obscure the view. She rests in the calm water and looks to the heavens above for longer than planned.

For the first time, she allows herself to admit she has been not only bored, but miserable in Mitras. _What's the alternative, though?_

When it becomes too daunting to think about, she permits herself to let it go. She focuses only on the soothing water running over her bare skin, listens to the chorus of nighttime creatures as though they are performing just for her.

Eventually, her pruned skin and fatigued muscles ask for relief.

There is a surreal sort of serenity that comes with being naked and alone in the wilderness. Mikasa lets herself bathe in the moonlight next, the gentle summer winds taking their time to dry her wet frame. In this moment, she would not be with Eren or Armin; their silence in her mind and absence from her presence is not discomforting. Too often, they outnumber her, their thoughts louder than her own.

Someone does come to mind, though; his warm hands confidently tracing the scars on her knuckles, the pointed glances he means to conceal what she can decipher better than most, the low, gravelly tone when they are alone and honest with another.

Mikasa stubbornly dismisses the mental imagery, explains the warm ache beneath her abdomen on aspects of nature, not a particular persona. She takes a towel out from her pack to finish drying off quickly, tugs on fresh clothing; favored black pants and an ivory camisole. Illuminated only by the crescent moon and starlight, the satin linen almost blends into her skin.

Forfeiting socks and boots, Mikasa instead props her pack against a tree trunk. She folds the towel and tosses it on top, taking a seat to rest against the pack, the towel a cushion as good as the pillow in her tent. For just a few more moments, she wants to (need to) enjoy the peace and quiet. Even when it requires pushing the thoughts of him firmly outside of her mind.

If her future feels like an impossible mathematical equation, she's not sure how he's come to be such a significant number in the calculation.

.

.

.

.

It is the snap of branches and approaching footsteps that alert her, waking Mikasa from an unplanned rest. Twilight shadows her vision but she briskly turns to the direction of an intruder, unafraid.

"Would be a real shame if the girl worth a hundred soldiers was mauled to death by a bear in her sleep."

Levi comes to a halt several steps before her, silvery light illuminating his serious features. When she stares, she tells herself it is because she is still waking up.

Mikasa considers his melodramatic sentiment. "Or eaten by a pack of wolves, I suppose."

Levi seems to muse over it. "Well, that might make for a marginally better tale."

She lets out an amused breath and straightens up, but refrains from wiping the tiredness from her eyes, lest she reveal how heavily she'd been sleeping. Even so, she feels his disappointment like heat flashed from opening an oven.

"Must have dozed off for a few moments." In no rush to leave, she doesn't reach for her socks and boots.

"Hours." Levi drops the word heavily, and with a pointed scowl he steps closer, almost towering over her. "You left the camp several hours ago."

Despite herself, she looks up at him, the dash of surprise apparent; not that she's accidentally slept for so long, but that he's been up waiting for her to return.

"I didn't mean to worry you."

Levi all but rolls his eyes. "Don't think I actually need to worry about your safety, brat."

It is probably a compliment, but she ignores it. Perhaps being half-asleep makes one as honest as being drunk; the words leave her lips before she can censor them. "Yet you waited to make sure I went back, and came all the way out here when I didn't."

This time, he tosses her an unimpressed glare. "When I fall off my horse from exhaustion tomorrow, make sure to blame yourself."

Subtly, she lifts both brows. "You're getting old if one sleepless night results in that."

He fights the quirk of his lips, she thinks, but that's all he does. Agitated, she turns to the river in front of her. It doesn't go unnoticed that he evades her question. It is more often than not he simply doesn't respond, or if he does, deflects with sarcasm.

Her words aren't loud, but they are bold. "I'm starting to wonder if I should keep count of how often you don't answer me."

"Hm." Levi turns to look at the gentle stream too, and she assumes he will be as unresponsive as all the other times.

Mikasa presses her lips together with the frustration she refuses to voice. She goes through the motions of putting on her socks and buckling her knee-high boots as though she is not unsatisfied.

Her fingers are wrapped around the last buckle when Levi takes a seat; though he hasn't moved abruptly, it startles her. She had been preparing to leave with him, but he instead plans to stay longer with her?

Levi grunts, unhappy. "We both know there are things worse than wolves that bother you."

Though his words aren't harsh (really, the opposite), it's the reality behind them that makes her stomach drop. Mikasa is glad he isn't looking towards her. An unconscious habit; she wraps her arms around her knees until she feels calm enough to respond.

"Do they bother you, too?"

Her words are so timorous she can't blame him if he doesn't respond this time around. He must have heard though; she watches his shoulders roll in a slight, unassuming shift.

"Often." As honest as only Levi can be.

Mikasa swallows hard. After a moment of deliberating, it's ultimately the exhaustion that lowers her ordinary defenses. As though she's asking about a technical malfunction with equipment, or optional maneuver in a strategic plan, she asks him, once again the protégé and her mentor.

"What do you do?" As vague as only Mikasa can be.

She wonders if he'll spit out some apathetic nonsense or tough bullshit, but instead he looks over to her, unafraid to respond.

"Accept it." He's flippant, but serious. "When I can't, find distractions."

Mikasa tightens her hold on her knees. "I might need to find more of those."

"Is that what this was about?" Levi lazily lifts a hand to gesture to their surroundings.

She considers this. Despite the unexpected nature of the conversation's content, she finds it isn't so difficult to discuss with him. If anything, it almost feels like a burden is lifting, to be able to speak on what is ordinarily a silent oppression over her heart.

"I'm not sure," she admits, her accompanying sigh the sound of an apology. "When I'm on guard or at home, it's like I can't help but imagine what it would be like to have Eren and Armin with me. But when I'm doing things that I know even if they were alive, they wouldn't be here for it, then I can… I can…"

Breathe.

Think.

Be.

"Just be." Levi finishes, still looking at her.

She frowns; not because he is wrong, but because he is right.

"Yeah." Only one syllable, but it is laced with self-loathing.

Mikasa stretches the toe of her boot out, knocks a loose pebble in the dirt forward. "Awful, isn't it? I'm supposed to miss them and honor their memories, and instead, I'm … relieved when I don't have to think about them."

Her frown deepens. The very nature of the dialogue disables her imagination from wondering what Armin would say, how Eren would react, but she thinks to them: _You deserve better than someone like me._

"Eh," Levi is dismissive as he leans forward and grabs the pebble she's toed. "If you spend every waking moment you have grieving over them, might as well be dead with them."

Levi runs a thumb over the flat side of the pebble, then looks up to the river, scanning the distance between his seated position and the water's edge. Before skipping the small stone, he looks back over to her. Mikasa is like a stilled frame, frozen between one shot of shock and the other, a photograph of grief.

"Better you're not dead or the equivalent of the dead. Dead people can't remember their loved ones. Besides," he adds, returning his focus to the river and tossing the stone. Both of them watch the soft ripples as it skips across, interrupting the calm surface. "You'll never stop missing them; but maybe the less you think of them, the more you can honor them."

There's such sincerity in his somber words that her instinctual response to argue with him fades as soon as it surfaces. This isn't some random man, a clueless civilian; it's Levi.

Levi, who hates the "fucking vinegar" taste of red wine, but regularly consumes what Erwin left behind.

Levi, who shrugged when she thanked him for the jade necklace, but always lets his gaze linger for several seconds too long when he catches her gratefully holding the smooth gem in absence of familiar fabric.

Levi, who took hold of her shaking, sobbing frame, pulling her back from depths no one else could climb down to in the days after Eren had passed.

Since it is Levi saying these words, she doesn't rebuke them. She almost even considers accepting them. Instead, she studies him. "Do you think of Erwin less?"

He rolls his shoulders again and she watches him busily scan the dirt, discontent. Mikasa looks to her left, sees a flat-sided stone, and collects it for him. Levi doesn't take it at once, but looks at the rock in her opened palm.

"I still think of him as often, but once I do, I don't think of him for as long."

Mikasa's hand wavers. "Do you hear him? What he would say, if he were still here."

Levi tilts his head. The manner in which he studies her is so determined she almost shies away from him; but the pebble is still in her hand, waiting to be taken. She bites her lip, wishes for the red scarf or the jade pendant, or at least half the determination she had when she'd made the decision not to need them anymore.

"Yeah," he answers, taking the pebble. There is a curtain of dark hair falling over his eyes when he shakes his head. "Who do you think was worried about your _potential_?"

This time, it is him who says it like it's a curse.

She blinks. It takes a moment for her to realize the meaning behind his words. It is not just an admission that he only challenged her because he thought Erwin would have wanted him to, but that he's sharing this now, a sort of apology for what he'd said to her the last time.

"You're not worrying about my potential, then." She says it flatly, but it is a question; an invitation for him to add clarity.

"No," he says evenly, tossing the pebble across the river's surface with ease. "I don't worry about your potential, I worry about you."

The casual manner in his words doesn't make them less startling to her, and Mikasa's mouth opens, prepared to make a dismissive remark. There's nothing, though; no sharp words readied when she hasn't actually spent time to consider for herself if there are things worth worrying about or not. She closes her mouth with a soft sigh. As though respecting her privacy, Levi stares ahead and says nothing else on the subject.

Mikasa finds it difficult to even let her mind wander down this path. Like she's a child again, she finds it easier to shut down, to walk away. If she could, she'd fight it off, distract herself with fractured ribs or sprained ankles. Dip her chin beneath the worn scarf, clutch onto smooth jade. None of these things are available to her now.

"Guess we should go back," she murmurs.

"Why?" Levi is brisk. He lifts a hand toward the towel stacked on her bag, gestures for her to hand it to him. "Apparently, this is far more comfortable."

Mikasa looks at him while several heartbeats pass, then she turns for the towel. "More peaceful, not more comfortable."

"Hn."

Levi takes the towel from her and tugs it open, spreading it evenly over the dirt with perhaps more familiarity than replacing sheets on a real bed. He rests, both arms tucked beneath his head and facing the tree's canopy, and Mikasa briefly scans the length of his resting frame before taking out another towel from her pack to do the same. She evaluates the several inches between their separate linen, a distinct and important patch of soil between them, and then rests beside him.

It's quiet, too quiet for Mikasa. She is used to their companionable silences, and has even become fond of them. This is a different sort of quiet, one in which she hears each breath, worries what every movement might betray, feels the tension between them as though there's an electric current.

"I'm fine." She says it roughly, too blunt.

It's more of an attempt to ease this foreign tension between them than an honest declaration.

"Me too." Levi doesn't hesitate, nor does he need to look over for her to recognize the words as sarcasm. "Hange says that's the problem."

She deliberates, decides to walk down the path, to figure out for herself what there is to worry about or not.

"I'm better than before." Her words are gentle, softened from the truth.

He turns toward her, taut planes of a handsome jawline, starlit gray eyes serious and probing. Eventually, he believes her. "Good."

She looks to him, less to prove that she means it, more because she's determined to prompt an authentic response from him. "Are you?"

Levi studies her, too. It's almost a full moment that passes. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

Eventually, she believes him, too.

.

.

.

.

Her breath hitches. The sound is soft, but for a sleeping Levi, it is loud as an alarm. He wakes fully at once, his eyes sharp to immediately scan their surroundings. The forestry clearing is devoid of intruders, the running river still calm in its ceaseless cascade, and the only company can be found in critters rustling through fallen leaves, birds chattering as they flit through the tree branches. Dawn's first light has woken them.

Certain there's no threat that warranted her caught breath, Levi turns to look at her. Mikasa's features are often smooth and cold as marble, as deliberate and comfortable of a facade as his own, he presumes. But in her sleep, she is more honest in her display; there's a gentle crease in her forehead, a flutter of dreams (or more likely, nightmares) behind her closed lids, and her lips parting, as if in protest. It's her hand that surprises him, though; rather, that he didn't notice whenever she first placed it over him.

He can't tell if it was meant to reassure herself or to reach toward him: it's almost desperate in grip, protectively placed on his arm with fingers stretched across the width of his bicep. He stares at her touch, acknowledges the pressure it carries, warm and strong. Then he hears her inhale again, too sharp to be natural, and his storm-gray orbs ping toward her face.

She doesn't seem disturbed, but then he notices her brows furrow, her lips pursing together; the hand on his arm tightens. _A nightmare, then_ , it confirms.

It doesn't surprise him; he's seen half the same sights that warrant such hellish dreams. Whatever compromises the other half, he's not sure he'll ever know.

Levi takes his eyes from her, turns again to face the morning sky and fringe of lush green canopy. "Rise and shine, Ackerman."

His words wake her at once; her grip on his arm tightens as she pulls him toward her chest, almost frantic. _Protective,_ he decides.

Levi glances from his peripheral vision. "What, Titans planning to enjoy me for a delicious breakfast?"

She's never been a morning person. There's a gradual acknowledgement as she blinks awake, staring at her firm grip and how it continues to rest on him, as though it isn't even her own hand holding him. When she finally removes it, there's a slow reluctance he determines must be from either exhaustion or embarrassment.

"Not sure you're fat enough to be considered delicious." Her tired words start as serious, but then are interrupted from a yawn. Almost sheepish, she half-covers her parting mouth with the back of her hand, a motion so uninhibited he finds himself openly staring. When she catches him watching, he's prepared with a smart remark.

"Is that a compliment?"

Mikasa's lips twist into a small, silent smile. Not responding, she turns upward, repositioning to face the sky, same as him. Nightmarish sights still blurring the edge of her vision, their morose conversation from last night resuming its residence in her mind, she stares into the morning light. Part of her wishes the sun shone brighter, its heat radiating stronger, as though maybe it would be able to burn what she feels out of her. Turn it to ash.

Levi had said there were things worse than wolves. He was right, of course. Their gnashing teeth and snarling bites don't compare to what persists in her mind.

"You know when we were younger, Eren saved my life."

Maybe it is strange to be saying these words aloud; or maybe it is stranger that something so deeply woven into her being doesn't get spoken about more often.

"Thought it was you who did all the saving," Levi quips.

She doesn't hesitate. "Not the first time."

Levi does not push for more, and she does not need, nor want his reassurance. She has already made the decision to talk about it; now, it is a monster that claws its own way out.

"My mother was targeted for her Oriental features. Their plan was to take her and – and profit from her. My father was taken by surprise, and she fought back, t-to protect me."

From her peripheral she can see his attention fully fixated on her, but she cannot will herself to turn toward him. Mikasa blinks against the strengthening light.

"They were both killed." Her words are clipped, blunted from the all the years she's spent numbing the pain associated with the memories. "They took me instead, and I let them. Not because I was young, or in shock, but because even then I already knew. I already knew—"

There's no tremor in her voice yet, but she can feel her words start to wobble. She swallows once, then twice, before finishing the sentiment.

"I already knew that I'd rather die with them than live without them."

Levi does not tell her that he'd been sick and starving at the foot of his dead mother's bed with the exact same sentiment, but when she risks a searching glance in his direction, he knows that is exactly what she finds from him. Her cool gray orbs soften from impervious rock to malleable clay, wet from withheld tears. She turns back to the sun, blames it on staring into the vibrant rays.

"We had been waiting for Dr. Jeager when it happened. When Eren and his father arrived, the three men had taken me, but still, Eren searched for me. He was just a boy, he'd never k-killed before, but… well, you know Eren."

"Hmm." It's a murmur of appreciation for Eren, something Mikasa doesn't realize until then how glad she is to hear it. She turns to Levi, wanting to see more. Levi is quiet because he's so close, but not less certain in what she is alluding to: even as a child, Eren would have had the tenacity to kill without hesitation if it meant protecting an innocent person. "Yeah, I know Eren."

Mikasa hums too, grounded for a moment in Levi's steadfast gaze; but the violent strength of the memories yank her back into the past. This time, she doesn't turn back to the sun.

"He was able to kill two of them, but he didn't know about the third. I warned him too late, I was useless, couldn't move, and Eren was almost killed, too. T-that's when it happened."

Her quieter emphasis on 'it' tells him that she's referring to the moment her so-called potential, the Ackerman bloodline, their shared enhanced abilities, erupted to life. Levi's nod is almost indiscernible, but it tells her he understands this, too.

"Eren was screaming at me, but I couldn't move; and then, then I could. Then I could _more_ than move. After that, w-well we were inseparable. I'm not sure what Dr. Jeager would have done with me if it'd been just him, but after he watched Eren give me his scarf, he told me I'd go home with them, be part of their family from then on."

Levi is surprisingly devoid of disdain when he mentions it. "That's the scarf."

"Yeah." This time, Mikasa almost flushes, looks at the patch of dirt between them instead of directly toward him. "I know you hated it, I know you found it gross that I didn't wash it as often as you said to, but the more I did, the faster it deteriorated."

He exhales a humorless laugh, and Mikasa's eyes lift toward him. "Well, good thing you never listened to a fucking thing I said."

Mikasa can't help it. She smiles, not humored so much as relieved; relieved that there is one more moment in which she knows she has his understanding. It's more than bloodlust and lethal skills that have brought them together, to moments like these, conversations like this. Though it would be appropriate to apologize for her insubordination, both of them know it wouldn't be sincere.

Levi acknowledges her amusement with a quiet _tch._

Mikasa's smile thins to a straight line of determination, the horrid monster erupting from its last barrier of imprisonment, breaking free.

"When Eren was alive, I had a family, I had a purpose to protect him, … a debt that I owed him. That would have been enough for me. That could have been enough."

Levi is too astute. Her upcoming confession is already apparent to him, his mouth settling into a hard line.

"Now he's not here. I couldn't protect him, I couldn't save him." Mikasa grits her teeth, returns her vision to the dirt, stares at it hard. "Eren was the only reason I had to live after my family was killed. Since he's gone, sometimes it feels like I might as well have died with them."

At her side, she can feel more than see the pressure of Levi's unblinking stare. Already the inside of her feels a weight lifted; the dismissal of the monster, the darkest thoughts brought out to be burned by the light. But she is tepid when she looks for his response, wonders if he'll find her stupid or selfish.

There's not a single sign her words have bothered or alarmed him. Free from fear of his judgment, Mikasa almost sighs.

Still, there's something unfamiliar in Levi's settled tone. "What would Eren say?"

Mikasa blinks; when her lids open, heavier tears appear, threatening to spill over. "I don't know. By the end, I don't think we understood each other anymore."

 _I don't think he'd understand me now_ , is what goes unsaid.

Levi pauses for half a moment. "What did he say back then?"

Mikasa stares. "When?"

"You said Eren was screaming at you. When you were able to move, it wasn't just because you're an Ackerman. It was because of what Eren said."

She pauses, but he can tell it's not because she doesn't remember. Mikasa sighs aloud, though her words are resolute, garnering strength from their original orator.

"To fight. He said, 'If you win, you live. If you lose, you die. If you don't fight, you can't win.'"

Levi looks at her, remembering Eren vividly through her words. "The world was much simpler in Eren's eyes."

One tear slips when Mikasa begins to nod. She abruptly stops and takes a breath instead; regardless, another tear falls downward. Embarrassed, or perhaps frustrated (probably both, she acknowledges warily), she takes another sharp inhale, plans to pull herself up and off the ground.

But Levi turns first, not intimidated at her admission or the accompanying tears; instead of flat on his back with his neck slanted toward her, he turns onto his side, an elbow propped so he can openly look down at her. He doesn't have to say anything; the willingness to hear and see this part of her without admonishment or judgment is comfort enough. Mikasa finds her shoulders relaxing into the comfort of soil beneath them.

One more tear slips down, feeble in its attempt to slide past the bridge of her nose, the last of the sorrow in her soul. Levi watches it intently; the last time he'd seen her cry, he distracted himself with her scars on her hands instead of the droplets in her eyes. This time, he does what he should have done (wanted to do) last time.

Levi sweeps the back of his pointer finger along the soft skin at the corner above her mouth, collecting the tear before she'll taste its salt. He holds his hand in place, the tear trapped between his touch against her cheek.

Mikasa reaches for his wrist; he prepares to be knocked off, but instead she latches onto him, her calloused fingers resting on the vulnerable skin of his inner wrist.

She asks him (not the protégé to the mentor, but something else, something else he doesn't know the name for), her words level, eyes searching. "What would you say?"

Almost scoffs. "You care what I think, br-"

"Yes." Slight annoyance at the 'brat' remark, but then she softens. This time, unafraid to admit it. "You know I do."

Levi has plenty of strength, but his hand is tired of holding itself in the precarious position of trapping the tear without cradling her face. His restraint weakens; the rest of his fingers go slack against her soft skin. That's all he plans to permit for himself, until his thumb snaps forward, taking the tear and brushing it off her cheek entirely.

It's a methodical movement. It was a practical plan. Levi doesn't believe this, but he knows it's what she'll tell herself.

Certain that if he doesn't answer her, she'll drown him in the river (or worse, never speak to him again), he decides to respond, direct and honest.

"You're not alone, Mikasa."

Mikasa's grip on his wrist falters, the only sign she's even heard his words; but just as soon, she tightens her hold, leaving him to wonder once again if it is to reassure herself or protect him.

It's not him he's worried about, though. Narrowing his gaze, he leans forward, ensuring he has her full attention. Levi sees her eyes widen, how she darts her vision to his lips, bites down on her own.

But her safety comes first, his selfishness last. "And don't ever fucking think about leaving me alone, either."

It's not a threat. It's not a command.

It's both.

Mikasa is so close she can feel his warm breath mingling with her own.

"That an order, Captain?" Her words are a whisper, mere syllables spoken through breath.

He's just as quiet in his response. "Not your captain anymore, brat."

Never has she heard the insulting moniker said with such affection.

 _What are you then?_ Her eyes seem to say. (No, that's not the right question, not really.) _What are we, then?_

Before she'll blush, before he can see the inevitable pink tingeing the height of her cheekbones, she pulls herself over to the sun, now glaring and bright. His hand falls away; the touch against her skin is still so hot she can feel it imprinted onto her. Its absence is one she immediately regrets leaving behind.

For a moment it is silent between them. There is something deep inside of her, a swirl of anxiety, curiosity burrowed into her gut (no, her soul), but she forces it back down. Thinking of his recommendations mentioned last night, she recalls one of his suggestions.

"Acceptance, huh?"

"Acceptance." Levi sits up, begins the process of shaking dirt out from the linen and folding it up into a neat square. She follows suit. When they are both finished and the two towels are tucked back into her bag, she looks over to him.

"And distractions," he adds. "Come on, I have an idea."

.

.

.

.

As though her lungs are on fire, she falls to her knees with quickened breaths, an ancient ritual to suck in cool air. Cords of muscle are wound together and strained so tight it hurts even to press against the grass as she kneels. Mikasa shamelessly slumps to the ground, ragged breaths and sharp movements as she turns to rest on her back. Like her heart is pounding to get out, her chest heaves, breasts rising and falling beneath her black top.

She wonders if one of her ribs is cracked, if she's strained her left wrist, if there's already a dark purple blotch of a nasty bruise on her lower back. Even as she targets these specific injuries, the rest of her limbs ache too, her entire frame riddled with pain. Yet, it feels so wondrously good. (No, more than that; it feels so precisely right. _I was born for this._ )

No longer soaring through the air or slamming into him, still the adrenaline courses through her system. The flood of hormones from the sparring stream through her like a tidal wave of infinite energy; though it can't be called happiness, the exhilaration is almost enough to convince her it might be.

Levi is no less ragged in breaths, and she's sure almost as injured, but he's kept himself standing and stretching for longer. He stumbles gracefully to kneel beside her, and she is both envious and amazed (though not surprised); if anyone could be fluid in weakness, it is him. He shudders at her side, the exhaustion betraying his hardened features when he looks over to her.

She's not sure why, but she smiles. Then, warmed up from this preamble, she laughs. It's short-lived; there's not enough air in her lungs to sustain it, and it hurts far too much, anyway. But her mirth lingers brazenly even as Levi keeps his steadied gaze on her, perhaps wondering if she's gone mad.

"Thank you," she manages to say aloud, one hand dropping over her heaving chest, the other falling to her side, almost but not quite touching his knee.

When Levi offers no quick remark, she turns to him fully, cheeks falling on thin blades of uncut grass and rich, warm dirt in the meadow. He's too worn down to wear the mask she has come to know as his ordinary face. Mikasa watches with the clarity of primal instinct still commanding her body; she sees him _look_ at her, like he's gulping down for a breath of air. His eyes rake over her frame, their focus moving from the length of her legs, to the beads of sweat centered between her breasts, landing on the curve of her upturned lips. She sees how he pauses at the sight of her smile, first surprised and then _wanting_ ; as soon as she notices it, he turns from her.

This close, this familiar with him, she notes the tight clamping of his jaw, a deliberate act of restraint so unproductive to the way his own lungs must be begging for fresh air. He no longer looks at her, but looks at the ground beneath him, as though it were just as serious a threat as she'd been a moment before.

It is the first time she cannot filter this on how she'd perceive it if another man had done it. Because this is not another man; this is Levi, and only Levi would do that. Perhaps to feign indifference, he loosens himself until he also shifts to the ground. A sharp inhale when he turns onto his back tells her the blow she'd landed on his abdomen has awarded the pain his blows have gifted to her.

Like a veil has been lifted, she understands what it is that she has not been able to name between them. Though she was always intelligent, one of the sharpest in the class, her social cues weren't as adept as others.

This is a simple mechanism that can be blamed on biology, the laws of attraction no different than the reliable laws of gravity that have carried her soaring body so predictably on ODM gear. Levi is stoic, but still, a hot-blooded man with as much testosterone as the rest of them. And her; well, Mikasa knows she is attractive the same as she knows she is strong, one fact no more and no less interesting than the other. Toned muscles on a curved, lithe frame, perky if not large breasts, a beautiful face, not just because most find it exotic.

It must be physical attraction. And if that's all it is, Mikasa knows there's a solution for that.

There is no wine, no sleep deprivation, and no sanity when she speaks. "Maybe we just need to get it out of our system."

"We just did," Levi says, misunderstanding her intent.

"I'm not talking about fighting."

He doesn't look at her, which tells her more than if he had. It's too late to turn back now, so Mikasa stares at him; this isn't hand-to-hand combat, but a different sort of battle that holds the same challenge. In the following seconds that he does not respond, she wonders if she has outmatched him. But then he turns; his sore frame surprisingly agile, as if she hasn't just brutalized him. He meets her gaze, unflinching.

"You're talking about fucking."

A different sort of thrill shoots through her, calling every nerve within her to full attention. Though a part of her assumed he would not take the bait, leaving her unprepared for his blunt words and unapologetic stare, the rest of her remains on fire, anticipation immediately numbing most of the pain.

"Yes." He's not blinked once while looking at her, so she continues. "But I'm not sure you'd be able to fuck me outside in the dirt."

A muscle in his cheek jumps and she _almost_ thinks she's won; her first victory round after years of defeat in their verbal warfare.

Prideful now, she continues. "Not clean enough for you, right?"

He's even faster than before; her caustic words are lost when he steals her nearest wrist, dragging her toward him at the same time he pulls himself upward. Levi is effective more than sensual in the manner he uses both of his knees to pin her down. Mikasa's free hand is fast as lighting to strike his throat, but he anticipates the move and cages her. Both of her wrists now caught in each of his hands as he slams them to the ground above her head.

Mikasa tries to free her wrists, but her dominant one is strained and though she might be as strong, his dominant one holds her uninjured one with more force than she can muster. At the same time, she tries to lift her hips to break her legs free, but he pushes down harder, the stronger one again. Defeated, Mikasa presses her lips together and finally looks up at him.

Belatedly, she realizes he is already studying her face, waiting for her to look at him so he can respond. ( _Oh,_ now _he has something to say?_ )

"You think I won't fuck you right here?" A dark timbre in his tone that matches the intensity in his gaze.

Mikasa pauses for a split second. Like a top that spins wildly, she is keenly aware that the power to halt it or spin it again is a decision that will be made by her own hands.

Then, because the momentum is pulling her so hard she is unwilling to fight against it, she raises her hips. With a delicacy rarely seen in her power, she aligns herself into him. He is _hard_ ; though she planned to make an equivocal statement of audacity, anticipation blooms from the weight of him between her thighs. Her response is almost breathless.

"I think you want to."

Though she doesn't again challenge him, she twists her wrists to reach for clumps of dirt, her fingers filtering through the soil. It speaks for itself. _I think you want to,_ _but will you?_

It surprises her again, his undertone of amusement instead of scorn; he tightens his grip on her wrists, dirt tainting his own hands, an unspoken admission.

At this, Mikasa doesn't have time to be surprised.

Levi is swift, dipping into the curve of her neck, his chin sinking onto her shoulder. It sounds like the start of a dry laugh, but its cut too short. Still, Mikasa feels the exhale from his lips so close against vulnerable skin, another jolt shooting through her.

He lowers his waist onto her, pinning her lifted frame fully to the ground. She can't tell if his quiet words are meant to taunt or tempt. "And what do you want, Mikasa?"

Mikasa loosens. Tough as he sounds, strong as he holds her, she doesn't miss this confirmation for consent. It sparks a different sort of warm within her, one she attempts to ignore.

"I told you," she says briskly, leveraging her legs to push into his hard member again. "Let's just get it over with."

.

.

It's as wild and consuming as their sparring, almost as violent. Collaborative movements to swiftly remove clothes, each tug and pull of fabric as harsh as it is effective. An unspoken agreement that this is _just physical_ but _not intimate_ keeps Mikasa's neck craned and Levi's bruising lips focused from beneath her ear to the dip in her collarbone.

Every one of his open-mouthed kisses is like a summoning, arching her closer to him. She's not sure who holds who tighter, both of them uncaring about their recent injuries, strength unleashed again.

The rest is a blur. It initially took years for Mikasa to strengthen, train and excel enough to feel on par with Levi when it involved slaying titans, but she finds herself once again clamoring to keep up. The grazing of his rough hands against the uncovered parts of her bare skin is unlike anything she's felt before (well, she's never felt _Levi_ like this before). He's firm as he explores the span of her supple curves, deft fingers lingering on the sensitive spaces that make her breath halt.

She cards one hand into his hair, her other hand taking on a mind of its own to bravely explore him, too.

.

.

Mikasa thought she'd done this before; propositioning a man who seemed capable enough to help her scratch an itch she couldn't reach. None of them compare, all of them are forgotten with Levi's overwhelming force. He's too deliberate, each touch ( _fuck_ , the flicker of his tongue) alternating from gentle to rough, confusing her on which she prefers more. While the electric tension causes friction and heat, Levi does not rush.

No, he _knows_ what to do, where to angle his touch, how to caress with his tongue — and it drives her absolutely mad.

Especially when he isn't even fucking her yet.

.

.

She's too stubborn to let half the exclamations she feels bubbling in her throat actually escape, but he makes it impossible.

First, an incoherent string of expletives.

Then, grinding out from her clenched teeth, unable to hold it any longer. " _P-please_."

Mikasa shifts to the side; it pulls his dexterous fingers from their expert work inside of her, but she aligns their hips together. She can feel his hardness so achingly close to her slit; she's dripping wet, more than ready to take him in.

Still, he doesn't oblige. His words are dark, taunting like she's never heard him before, his palm returning to her swollen clit. "Not until you come."

Mikasa's eyes open with a flash. It is the same as (it is nothing like) her younger years: the need to buck at his authority, simply because she can, always with the knowledge that (for some reason) he lets her. Her next move is more instinctual than calculated, giving him no opportunity to counter her; she takes a rough hold of him and flips them, ramming Levi hard into the ground and straddling across him.

"No. I'll come when you fuck me."

Levi looks at her with something of a scowl, but it is far from genuine and she can see his thoughts as transparently as if they are inscribed to his forehead. _Mikasa Ackerman_ would _insist to come on her own terms._

Despite herself, her lips almost shift into a smile. She sees Levi's storming-gray orbs narrow onto what she thought was an indiscernible micro-movement. Before she can wonder why, why this and why now, he grabs both of her thighs and pulls himself upward and into her. He's so fluid it actually catches her by surprise, an uninhibited moan at last released— _Oh, Holy Walls,_ he's finally, finally inside of her.

.

.

Mikasa makes an effort to avoid his heated gaze, doesn't allow her lips to be found anywhere near his own; but in the existential seconds between each of his thrusts, when she's grinding into him with equal authority, she comes alive within (because of) their connection.

Somehow, she's not surprised that Levi Ackerman doesn't feel like a stranger.

(Somehow, being with Levi isn't strange.)

.

.

Late morning sunlight bears down on them in their seclusion of tall grass, surrounded by dandelion weeds and lilac flowers decorating the meadow. She immediately slithers back into her panties, exhausted. Levi quietly finishes buckling his pants, dark hair mussed at the edges of his vision, a sheen of sweat lingering on every inch of his skin. He's more winded than he cares to admit, and it's not from the strenuous activity (though, he's keenly aware he's never fucked a woman as fierce or powerful before) – no, it's because of the unexpected partnering.

 _Is this unexpected?_ Levi looks down at her, taken aback once again at the sight.

She's stunning; not a hardened soldier from wartime but a half-bare _woman_ , her features softened from pleasure, lavender-dusted gray orbs almost dazed in confusion, her lips still parted in the aftermath of an orgasm. It's fascinated him to see her strength as she soars through the air in pursuit of titans, but this mesmerizes him, too.

It's not planned on his part; from temptation far greater than earlier, he is drawn toward her again. Levi takes hold of her face to gather her attention; it's just enough time for her to respond.

His lips meet hers with a brazen confidence; not the timid attempts ordinary to a first time, but with an immediate expectation of mutual engagement. Mikasa finds herself stunned for a full second, but immersed in the ongoing radiation of explosive pleasure, her lips betray the shock of her mind, desperate to meet with him.

An overdue kiss, pent up passion finally released.

Levi's mouth slants over hers, a guide for her to follow; he seems to know the perfect pace that allows her languid responses to awaken from this different (somehow, more sensual) connection. Soon, it's a competition— who can deepen their kiss further, who can kiss the other for longer. When Levi's tongue slides over her bottom lip, it is not a demand but an earnest exploration; still, Mikasa's lips part easily, inviting him.

She finds herself willing to let him lead, her tongue dancing after him, blissful and eager. Needing to stabilize herself, both her hands reach for his chest, tethering herself to him.

How markedly different the intimacy of this moment feels compared to the wild vigor from before is a thought that flits through her mind briefly, but she is distracted at Levi's careful touch with the back of his fingers grazing her bare stomach. He lingers over the edge of the panties she just slipped back on; she leans back half an inch, unwilling to separate further.

"I already came." A whisper, a weak protest.

Levi halts his touch but doesn't remove it, resuming their kiss as if it hadn't been interrupted. Their mutual release from a few moments before isn't forgotten, but it pales in comparison to the boiling heat, this frenetic energy now that they've given in, now that they kiss.

Even in such a sensitive place, his hand starts to feel as though it's in an ordinary placement– an exhilarating contradiction. Mikasa wishes she hadn't interrupted him. Her subtle but deliberate shift of her hips drags his knuckles south, their gentle pressure enticing her further; it's an inaudible moan in their next kiss, but he feels it.

In response, he turns his fingers over; now they're intentional, drawing a circular pattern atop her, making her frustrated at the fabric's interference.

In Levi's next kiss he takes hold of her bottom lip, firm but tender when he tugs, and Mikasa's last ounce of self-control is absolved.

"Oh, please," she manages with a breath before tugging at his own bottom lip, pulling into him.

Levi doesn't hesitate; he slips beneath the fabric, leading with fingers that only ruminate over her wetness. Mikasa's hold on him tightens, one hand wrapped around his arm, the other above his waist. She clamps her jaw down, cheek resting against his own; she's stubborn, unwilling to beg twice.

When Levi at last presses in, two fingers deep and probing, she struggles to withhold tremors from her lips. Pride dissolves; she immediately searches for him, drawn at once into kissing him again. Shockwaves from her last orgasm haven't settled (a fact of which his capable hand seems to be fully aware of, Mikasa gasps). His thumb is an authoritative leader, finding the bundle of nerves with expert patterns that weaken her resolve to remain silent.

Mikasa shudders, her lips falling from his by accident; he finds the corner of her mouth for one last kiss.

Distracted from the overwhelming pleasure, she doesn't notice he's lifted not only his head, but his entire frame, too. Levi's electric touch withdraws from inside her; he's repositioning himself, lifting her left leg, bending it at the knee. Her eyes flutter open, lids lifting just in time to see him dip into the soft skin underneath her knee. She sees and feels him, an open-mouthed kiss so light that it disarms her.

Levi can feel when the taut muscles in her legs loosen, trusting him; he tightens his hold over the base of her thigh, pulling her further into him. Her excited hiss elicits his primal need for _more_ ; seeking further affirmation, he takes his time to settle the weight of her leg onto the base of his neck, mouth not once lifting from the bare skin of her inner thigh. With his free hand, he finds the center of her panties; she's soaking wet. Enjoying the proof of his handwork, he runs the pad of his thumb over the wet fabric, tempting her again with the vast distance between 'above' and 'beneath.'

As he continues his descent down her inner thigh, his kissing more firm, more _hungry_ , his other hand transitions to her waist. Like scouts sent ahead, he curls two fingers on the waistband of her panties, prepared to be ordered to remove the undergarment. With his mouth, he claims the sensitive corner between her thigh and soaked garment, the last of her defenses. His tongue is almost bruising, a warning of what's to come if she'll let him in.

Mikasa's flooded with a high more intoxicating than soaring and slaying titans; even lying down, she needs to hold on, and her fingers find the strands of hair above his undercut, clasping them tightly.

When she speaks, it is not a plea, but a demand. " _Levi._ "

Like a puppet pulled by the master's strings, his cool gray (no, now they're frenzied) eyes find hers at once, the pressure of his lips lifting off her skin. His clutch on her waistline is rough and expedient to tug the fabric; Mikasa clumsily lifts her hips to assist in the removal, but Levi is tactical enough to compensate. Unwilling to separate from her, he waits until the garment reaches the cords of muscle on her mid-thigh and rips the material off in one, strong pull.

Mikasa finds that she is not grieved by the ruined clothing; instead, she watches him discard the fabric, the sight of it an exhilaration. It's evidence he wants to reach her as much as she wants him to reach _her_. Whatever tepidness she still holds abruptly dissipates.

Levi tilts his head, the bridge of his nose preceding the touch of his lips as he at last meets her slick folds; warm, wet tongue on wet, intimate skin. Reminiscing on her earlier words ( _"Let's just get it over with",_ crisp and unaffected _),_ he finds himself dedicated to patience, determined to make her _affected_. His tongue is teasing; deliberate in the manner he glides it first on the left of her outer lips, again on the right, not yet greeting the center of her sex.

He doesn't think she means it when she pulls his hair hard enough it's actually painful, but it is the opposite of unpleasant. Levi glides his tongue inside of her, the taste of her as tantalizing as her moans; he needs more of her, more of what ( _everything_ ) she has to offer him.

Most of Mikasa's earlier moans were bitten down, self-prohibited from being released; now, he coaxes them fully out of her. His gentle teasing is gone, his tongue powerful in its directed purposes instead. She drives her thighs upward to bring him closer; he wraps a hard grip around them, pulling her into him, needing every inch of her. Neither of them is concerned with the fingerprint bruises sure to be found by tomorrow.

 _Too much,_ Mikasa thinks wildly, _too close._ She moves to grab him, can't reach him.

"C-come here," she begs, fists grappling to clutch onto something sturdier than his thin hair or the loose dirt. "I- I need to hold you."

It's difficult for him to pull back, but he listens at once, drawn like a magnet due to the transparency in her words, aware it's rare for her to speak them. Levi lifts his frame again, her thigh draped over him falling off and down his side; he moves toward her torso, his hand swift to replace where his tongue had been, what it'd been doing.

He understands what she needs when she lifts herself upward, both arms wrapping around his neck, the weakest he's ever seen her; trembling, she anchors onto him.

She wouldn't have asked if she wasn't _close_ and Levi pulls into her, feels her chin firmly rest into the crook of his neck; her breath hot and fevered, her moans a genuine melody sung (to him, for him). With several adroit fingers, Levi finds the right rhythm, learns the proper pressure meant for her, the pad of his thumb a sensational scandal atop her clit. Inside of her, he can feel her inner walls tighten and contract, the potential of her upcoming orgasm no less of a high for him, too.

"Hold on tighter," he tells her, not because he needs her to, but because he realizes she does.

Mikasa almost whines from relief; with permission to release the strength she's so used to withholding, she tightens onto him, pulling herself up and into him with a painful vigor. Levi almost cringes at her bruising strength on his recent injuries, but instead, he searches for her lips.

She's too close to climax to be graceful but it's utterly satisfying to him; he leads their kiss amidst her simpering, feeling her come from his touch, proof of her torrential pleasure in the twisting of her lips.

"O-oh," she cries, pulling him closer.

Levi finds her bottom lip and holds it for an overdrawn, endless kiss, focused intently on her ascension through climax; then, still as intent, watching her descend, letting her soak in the bliss without further distractions.

Both of them are out of breath against each other's lips, chests heaving and hearts racing.

After another moment of regulation, Mikasa looks to him, starry-eyed and weakened from explicit pleasure. Levi moves to kiss her again; lips already parted, Mikasa is ready for him this time, no less _wanting_ of this than when she'd been led to beg before.

These kisses are still competitive, but there's a new familiarity, a different objective now; it is a slow, steady pursuit of the other, the final seal of a newly formed intimacy. Belatedly, Levi withdraws his hold from inside of her, instead resting wet fingers between her thighs.

When neither of them can breathe, they're reluctant but required to pull back from one another.

Possessed with an instinct he doesn't realize he has, doesn't know how to name, Levi brushes back loose strands of her tangled hair, tucks them behind the shell of her ear. Now visible, her bare skin glimmering with sweat, he leans into the crook of Mikasa's neck; his deliberate kiss is like one, final statement— gentle, without expectations.

Mikasa looks to him unabashedly, as if for a moment forgetting that he can see her while she looks at him, evaluating him. Levi is not sure what she's looking for, but he can see what she finds.

If he blinked, he would have missed it: a subtle widening of her eyes, the tensing of her jaw, a thought that flashes through her mind so severely it snaps her back to reality. Then, she turns, unreadable features set like marbled stone.

Levi leans back, doesn't (allow himself to) frown. It's been a long time since he's seen anything remotely close to fear within Mikasa Ackerman, but he sees it now.

.

.

.


	3. Ordinary Route

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, hope you are well! Thank you for reading, and thank you so very much to everyone who has reviewed. Your thoughts, feedback, and critiques are genuinely appreciated. xo 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the breakdown of denial + gradual reveal of more honest thoughts. ;) Most importantly, please accept a few of my creative liberties in geography if you are very well-versed with Paradis Island. xo 
> 
> With love, Helena

**Beyond the Walls**

_Chapter 3: Ordinary Route_

* * *

It's never dawn that wakes her, but the exposition of a nightmare. Dislocated jaws of open-mouthed titans, the decisive _chomp_ when their teeth snap bone, shrill cries of soldiers unexpectedly snatched from the sky – death is only loud when it comes as a surprise. Those who have time to see their end as it happens aren't ordinarily able to vocalize a protest.

Mikasa's subconscious is honest, thus selfish. Imagery from battle sequences shifts between unbridled terror to the sweetness of nostalgia, even when the gore spills from bodies with familiar faces. It isn't their whimpers that inject panic into her veins, but the quieter moments of betrayal that have nothing to do with beasts or monsters.

 _It's alright, Mikasa._ Weak for a promise, he hides his disappointment behind overgrown blonde layers. _I wouldn't have chosen me for the serum either._

 _Leave me alone._ Viridian eyes darkened by distrust. _For once, will you just leave me the fuck alone?_

An echo of Eren's snarl is what wakes her, adrenaline crashing through her system. 

Their time spent together in the past and the eruption of a dreamworld in the years since have blurred together. Wounds from the truth merge with the self-inflicted torture of her fictions. It doesn't matter if the words were spoken by the Living or the Ghosts; neither one is less real than the other.

Reluctantly, Mikasa lets her lids flutter open.

In the privacy of her tent, she settles her sore shoulders deeper into the strange comfort of the dismal cot. What must be the bright announcement of a new day outside only filters into her makeshift room with subtle hues. It makes the abrupt transition to the waking world more tolerable, though her aching frame, strained wrist and tender core are too surreal to be classified as reality. Mikasa does the only thing she knows to do for certain; she takes stock of yesterday's injuries.

Lifting her hands to study them at a closer purview, she's calculative. Split knuckles over swollen joints. The one wrist inflamed. Scars so familiar it's easier to believe she was born with them. Hands that never had a chance to be delicate. Admires them for what they're capable of; scolds them for what they've done.

Her overworked muscles beg to be stretched, but there's something about getting out of bed that would signify the start to a day she isn't ready to face. Instead, she arches her back and lifts her legs upward, toes pointed to the linen ceiling. For a brief sliver of time, she can convince herself this is the porcelain skin and sculpted figure of a dancer, not a half-retired soldier.

Half-retired. What the Military Police remark in snide comments, noses pinched and lips pressed with condescension. It's meant to be an insult; she's not committed enough, too weak-willed, doesn't deserve special treatment. Shouldn't be the one trusted to protect the Queen. These are the whispers said too loud for her to believe it's an accident she's heard them.

Their resentment can be chalked up to lingering disdain for the disbanded Survey Corps and her refusal to be branded with a _fucking unicorn_ patch despite her responsibilities aligning with their brigade's purposes. Still, there's something about the sentiment that sits with her, the clanging of bells in the depth of her mind sounding off that something in it rings true.

Half-retired.

Half in, half out.

Half steeped in the past, half poised for the future.

The former, a wound so painful it isn't worth pressing further into; the latter, as unknown as what exists across the ocean. Enthralling perhaps, but mostly terrifying. She's heard some of the more ambitious caravan members discuss wooden vessels called ships, capable of floating on the salted sea and steering past the cresting waves. The endless possibilities for those bold enough to sail into the unknown, but also the reminder that it is more likely to result in a so-called shipwreck.

Mikasa finds she is unconvinced by the high-pitched tones of dreamers, instead aligning with the calm rhythm used by placating realists. On a few occasions she's looked across the campfire's crackling logs and rising smoke to evaluate Levi's position on the matter, but if he has an opinion, it's hidden by shadows and apathy. One time, she noticed the sudden pause of his spoon as it hovered over his soup, the subtle widening of his gaze so discreet she would have missed it if she hadn't been loo–

She halts these thoughts on Levi (worse, on Levi's future) at once. Mikasa leans forward to stretch the tips of her fingers to meet with the lifted height of her pointed toes. No more an active soldier than she is a performing ballerina, Mikasa dwells on her half-retired status ("a decorative statue, at worst").

Despite the steadfast kindness and familiar warmth of Historia's presence, thinking of her post as the Queen's personal guard causes Mikasa to frown. The more time she's spent exploring beyond the walls, the more difficult it is to consider returning to a stand-still in the cities behind them.

For the hundredth time since traveling with the caravan, she wonders what else she could do (wants to do) instead. It wasn't an exaggeration when she'd told Levi she can't think further ahead than one day, though since then, she's made unprecedented attempts to try.

Levi. While she kept her distance from him for the rest of yesterday's events (even skipped dinner and retired early, as her grumbling stomach reminds her), and though she continuously intercepts any thoughts about him now, she keeps circling back to him.

Like an idiotic moth fluttering into lantern's light, she gives into the chase of brighter, fiery thoughts.

She propositioned Levi. She had sex with _Levi_.

Levi had kissed her. Levi had _more than_ kissed her.

Mikasa looks to the wine-shaded bruises he's left on her skin; briefly remembers the fist-sized ones delivered from blows in combat, then ruminates for longer on those given during the intimate moments thereafter.

Soft thumb imprints decorate the inside of her arms. _Him above her, ink-blank hair swaying as he holds her forearms tight to thrust deeper, bottoming out._

An impressive set of vivid fingerprints on the outside of each thigh, indisputable evidence that her taunt – _"No. I'll come when you fuck me."_ – provided the final temptation he could no longer resist. The taunt (no, the quirk of her smiling lips) before he dug his fingers in strong enough to lift himself, hard as iron when he finally filled her.

At the apex of her thigh, a singular mark that can't be confused for anything other than– _Levi's tongue branding her at the edge of skin and black cotton, a kiss so forceful her legs quiver as they open wider for him_ – a love bite.

There are the marks that can't be seen, too. Mikasa finishes tracing over the splotched bruises to traverse the softer expanse of her inner thigh. Unable to determine _which_ lips he'd claimed can be faulted for the current coils of heat beneath her abdomen, she graces between her slit (wet, _already_?) and lets her other hand drift upward to her parting mouth.

She skims two fingers over her bottom lip, feels it as though it's still swollen – remembers the taste of _herself_ when Levi's mouth slanted over hers again. That had been a moment more startling than penetration; up until then, she could have later convinced herself it had all been an out-of-body experience or lustful dream (because this was Levi, it _had_ to be a dream). But the tantalizing taste of herself when he kissed her afterwards was a shock of proof.

After spending the entire day prior avoiding all of these intrusive thoughts, letting them come forward now is like a surging tidal wave. In this private moment, the hand between her thighs mirroring movements of her reminiscent thoughts - how he moved, how he felt - it's less terror, more enthrallment.

.

.

_"C-come here. I- I need to hold you."_

Mikasa pulls herself up onto her elbows with a violent start. Fear rips through her, slamming thoughts of their intimacy behind steel-bolted vaults at once. Worse than anything she allowed Levi to do to her (with her) is what she wanted him (even asked him) to do. 

If there is one thing left in this world that Mikasa knows for sure (even without Armin's intellect or Eren's moral compass), it is that she does not deserve to be so blissful as to leave behind the pain of the past.

Half in, half out. Mikasa stubbornly decides to shelve that inner debate as she swings both legs over the cot in search of study ground. After all, the MP's in a post-titan world are as full of shit as the ones from her adolescence.

Unwilling to wait for the heat to subside, refusing to finish what she started, she tugs on fresh clothing and haphazardly buttons her top (misses a button, has to redo all of them). Once she unties the flap to her tent's entrance and steps outside, she's immediately overtaken by the vibrant colors, woodland scents of damp moss and pine, and cordial commotion of the caravan's breakfast plans.

Mikasa's last honest thought is to wonder if long before she knew of the sea, she's been afraid of shipwrecks. Then she gets to work.

.

.

.

Two weeks pass. It's easier to ignore him than the memories _("Not until you come.")_ but Mikasa considers herself successful enough. Warring the titans taught her (or did he?) to take your victories where you can get them. She takes longer than necessary on ordinary tasks, volunteers to go ahead or stay behind after determining his own route, disappears from camp after hours, and even befriends a few other young women, leveraging their company to ensure she's isn't found approachable.

It's impossible to tell if she's been clever or if he's been disinterested; she's unwilling to explore the unease that comes from fearing it is the latter.

In the moments when their mutual presence is required, she is the practiced statue of the Queen's guard that Levi (no, Commander Erwin) disparaged her for being; reticent and unaffected. And he is no different than before; provides instruction to her when necessary, only turns toward her when clarifying what she's to do. It's in these limited interactions that she doesn't fault herself for the self-modified behavior. She has to make an effort to avoid blushing or to remain nonchalant, but Levi is utterly equanimous.

It isn't shame, or embarrassment, but something similar; something that make her hot, uncomfortable and desperate to be out of his aloof presence. When she is near him, hearing the taciturn commands, unable to see even a hint of him remembering their recent affairs, it forces her to think of him more (bare-skinned and bruising, _"Hold on tighter."_ )

Mikasa plays the tape over and over in her mind, always debating what his motives had been; each time the reel runs anew, she finds no further clarity. Without being able to pinpoint it, the frustration within brews.

On this matter, she hasn't a clue what Armin or Eren would say. It doesn't even cross her mind to wonder as she knows it would not be a matter she'd discuss with either of them.

.

.

.

Her name is Sari. She has hazel eyes, apple-round cheeks, and hosts more freckles across her face now than when their caravan first departed, the sun bringing them out the same way it has lightened her honey blonde hair. Despite being only twenty-four, she is what Armin would call an "old soul", reserved and thoughtful. Though Mikasa had originally, and awkwardly, befriended her with ulterior motives, she finds that she is grateful for the warm companionship.

Sari doesn't like small talk, but doesn't ask many personal questions, either. She leads conversations on philosophy, religion, and politics; the sort Mikasa is surprised to find she is adept in responding to. Though sometimes Mikasa is blunt, often inflexible in her perspective, Sari never condemns her for it.

It is through Sari that Mikasa learns more about caravan culture and their plans beyond the immediate future of this scouting trip. When it was determined that the monarchy's authority extended only to Wall Maria, it thus proclaimed the outerlands beyond the walls an ungoverned realm. This led to a scramble for various population sectors to chart territories and lay claim on lands they would make their own. Some have repulsive or criminal purposes (Mikasa vaguely remembers half-listening to the Queen's involvement on discussions about that), but this caravan is led by those who plan to implement a 'people-led government.' 

For Mikasa, who had accepted the nature of life within the walls as a child, relied on the strict structure of the military in adolescence, and spent her entire adulthood thus far standing beside the Queen herself, it is more than radical.

"Oh come on," Sari teases. "Don't tell me it doesn't at least make you curious?"

"Well, sure," Mikasa agrees. "But what does my curiosity matter; how can you know that it will actually work?"

"Because it _is_ working," Sari insists with a grin. "There have been several failed attempts from other groups without an organized governing structure, but it's the coastline territories who've adopted a people-led governing model with fair representation that are thriving."

Mikasa looks at her. There's a reason (a person) that makes this vaguely more familiar. "The coastline territories?"

Sari nods with enthusiasm. "The ones that Mr. Ackerman helped establish a few years past. Most of us were prepared to leave the walls last year, but Luka and Briella insisted we wait for him."

Mikasa is grateful for the bowl of fried rice and poached egg in hand as she takes another bite. "Aren't there other guides?"

"A few good ones, but Mr. Ackerman is more of an adviser than a guide. He spent a lot of time with the coastline territories when they were first established; saw them through their pitfalls and such. The perspective he's had working with them is invaluable for us."

This time, Mikasa takes a larger than necessary bite, uncertain how to place the reason for the churning in her gut.

"You're friends with him, right?" Sari asks, oblivious as she takes a bite from her own bowl.

If they are, Mikasa certainly can't be considered a good one. She can't recall a time she's ever asked him about in-depth details of his time spent on the coast.

"We served together in the Survey Corps."

But everyone already knows that, Humanity's Strongest Soldier and the Girl Worth a Hundred Soldiers have reputations that precede them, and it isn't what Sari asked. The younger woman flicks her hazel eyes up for all but half a second before returning her attention to the food, astute enough to gather that the nature of their friendship isn't a preferred topic of discussion.

"In any case, it works like this," Sari begins, and a lengthy description follows of how a paper document called a 'constitution' and people-chosen leaders, or rather 'elected representatives', will serve on behalf of the interests of the designated factions in each territory.

The two of them continue dinner together, not necessarily alone at the outskirts but not amidst the busier crowd in the inner circle of the campfire, either. Mikasa is too engrossed in the conversation, comforted by the routine and enamored at the current point Sari plans to make, that she doesn't hear someone else approach them.

Sari waves her bread in the air as she enunciates. "No, it's not that I'm saying the Queen has to make announcements on the subject, just that simply by be- Oh, good evening, Mr. Ackerman."

Mikasa's shoulders straighten. She watches Sari look over her head to where Levi must be standing behind her; her new friend offers a polite smile to greet him. Mikasa means to turn for a greeting as well, but places her bread down on the napkin before her instead.

"Good evening, Sari. Levi is fine, really." Then, without pause. "Mind if I borrow Mikasa?"

"Of course not," Sari says, waving her bread again.

Mikasa half-turns to look over her shoulder as Levi finally comes around to stand beside them. Their eyes meet in a clash of solid stone against flat steel. At this moment, she is certain it was a deliberate maneuver on his part to quietly approach from behind instead of at an angle where she would have seen him coming. Already caught off-guard, she tenses further.

"What if I mind?" Tries to sound flippant, but the look of surprise in Sari's hazel eyes tells her she is too crass.

" _Tch_. It's not an order," Levi says, amused. "Up to you, brat."

Already he turns and carelessly begins to walk away, leaving Mikasa behind in what feels like a disadvantage. It gives her the chance to evaluate him without interference, though. Relaxed shoulders, even steps in a natural gait, and hands loosened at each side for an all-together neutral position. It's the opposite of her taut, defensive frame. Pride swells within her; it's a wounded ego that makes her snap to attention.

"Sorry," Mikasa says to Sari, her apology clipped but sincere.

"No worries," Sari assures her, looking up and over as Mikasa's agile frame picks itself up and starts after the caravan's adviser.

Levi makes no notion that he hears her follow, says nothing as he leads them toward the front of their encampment. When they near the large, taupe tent that she recognizes as one belonging to him, her spine straightens further. Something in the dynamic is too reminiscent of her younger years; when he was the arrogant captain who beat the shit out of Eren and commanded them on irrelevant matters, like deep cleaning abandoned castles, and she was the young cadet, helpless in the courtroom, holding the duster and scrubbing baseboards. It only serves to amplify the frustration she's felt brewing over the last couple weeks.

By the time they reach inside of his tent, the cover flap coming to a close behind her and Levi for the first time turning to look at her, her agitation is apparent in a creased brow and tense frame.

"You got something to say, Ackerman?"

"No." Mikasa responds with certainty, but the falseness is apparent to both of them.

He waits, one brow lifted. Mikasa decides this is as good a time as any to scan her surroundings. The largest tent of their caravan after the mess hall, there's a front room designed for small gatherings before linen hangs to separate out his personal room. In this gathering room there's the only real wooden table in the caravan's equipment, and it is neatly organized with stacks of maps, annotated papers, sharpened writing utensils, and half-burnt candles.

There's one large map that's the most prominent; a marked portion of the terrain is the familiar surroundings of late, most of it is blank uncharted lands, and the rest is the coastline before the sea. Unable to help it, she focuses specifically on the coastline territories; at least fifteen of them are clearly marked with borders, names, and stars denoting central cities.

 _Why don't I know anything about these territories?_ No, it's not that. _Why don't I know anything about his work on the coast?_

Mikasa turns back to him; in an instant, unnamed hurt is redirected into the more familiar fires of anger. Levi asked her if she had something to say.

"Yes," she amends, shoulders taut. "You shouldn't have kissed me."

Levi is unconcerned. "Most of the time, there's kissing involved in the fucking."

"There wasn't, though." _Not at first_ , Mikasa thinks to herself. _Not until – …_

The realization that both of them are now prompted into a recollection of the same exact memory _(stilled by the shattering of climax, she stares into the distance until the sudden pressure of his palm adorns her face, guiding her to a kiss she'd been desperate to taste)_ at the same exact time makes her stomach fall to the floor. Too late, she controls her expression.

This time, a pause that lasts several heartbeats. "I don't recall you complaining at the time."

Though she is the one who brought it up, she isn't ready to discuss it. With no clever response prepared, she finds her mouth opening to offer a blithe response that instead comes up empty. When she presses her lips to a close, it's an accidental frown.

He starts to move forward, each step closer reminding her of a predator circling in on their prey.

"You know, I'm not sure whether to be offended or to pity you, that it took your adamant need to avoid me to actually befriend another person." Almost wistful, he adds, "A normal person, too."

Mikasa narrows her eyes. "I'm not avoiding you."

"No?"

A rhetorical question, but still she answers.

"No. I'm doing what you wanted, aren't I?" She gestures around them to the camp outside of the tent, indicating her involvement in the affairs.

But Levi shakes his head. "The only thing I wanted was for you to figure out what _you_ wanted."

"Why do you even care?" Angered, because even after all these years, Mikasa finds that this is the emotion that protects her best.

Something torrid flashes over Levi's face, but then it's gone, replaced with the flat steel gaze from earlier.

"Alright, Ackerman." It's too cavalier of a dismissal; she doesn't buy it for a moment.

"Hm?"

"I think I understand the problem." An undercurrent of arrogance in the placating tone; it knots her stomach.

Ordinarily she's deliberate on her placement in a room, familiar with each vantage point to strike, every step angled toward an exit; but somehow she's already lost her bearings. Levi takes another step forward and her instinctive step back guides her into the table's edge, the back of her thighs square against the sturdy wooden platform. She steadies herself, both hands pressed flat behind her.

"What?" More irked than intended, but she lifts her chin, unwilling to let him know it.

Another step closer, and like there's a shield before him, she's pushed back, knees buckling to lower her frame. Still, he crosses over the last space between them, the tilt of his head revealing a lazy mischief.

"First, you wanted me out of your system." His words are even, but too quiet, too imbued with the sensual memories attached to them.

No sooner than she meets his gaze does he lean fully forward; Mikasa feels the warmth of his breath on the soft skin beneath her ear as he finishes the sentiment.

"Now you want me in."

_(In. Finally in; oh, how she simpered from the existential connection the first time he finally, finally thrust inside of her.)_

Mikasa's sharp exhale can't be construed as surprise; even she hears that it escapes from exhilaration.

Too proud to wilt further in weakness, Mikasa reaches for the loose fabric in the center of his chest. She forces him out from the hollows of her neck to get a better view of him; though it's meant to intimidate, he looks at her without a single ounce of concern. On the contrary, the subtle smirk from before looks as though it's waiting to be sprung free again.

"You're projecting," Mikasa tells him. It sounds like a threat.

Levi lifts a brow. As though an honest question, he asks, "Am I?"

Even when he moves faster than Mikasa can dodge, he appears calm; Levi takes hold of the wrist she's pushed into his chest and lays his other hand onto the table at her side, caging her.

"Tell me." Unblinking as he evaluates her trapped frame, the low timbre in his tone sending chills down her spine. "What am I projecting?"

Like he knows she has been studiously attempting to avoid the memories of their time together, but now he's prompted their retrieval ( _a simple,_ _strong tug and the fabric rips easily off her thigh_ ) and brings them flaring to life in her mind _(startling white heat radiating through, Levi's throaty groan when he comes, too)._ Mikasa can feel the flush that tinges her cheeks, burns the tips of ears, drives searing heat into her core.

Levi continues to stare with an indolent brow lifted, but the thunder behind his storming-gray eyes is no different than the morning in the meadow. Whatever bout of anger she plans to unleash is stolen by him; the way he looks at her now makes her feel as though she's already naked. 

Beneath the grip he holds on her wrist, Mikasa feels her hand go slack. This time, there's no injury from sparring to blame. It's a silent surrender, but the manner in which he blinks, slow from heavy lids, tells her that he's heard it.

Levi releases his grip on her wrist, leaves her palm to fall flat against his chest. Mikasa swallows ( _Walls_ , _how is he still so sculpted?_ ), remembers the last time she had access to explore the muscled expanse beneath his shirt. Her hand is slow in its retreat to hold the table behind her.

She doesn't stop him when his now emptied hand reaches toward the base of her neck. Like combatants searching for their rival’s next move, their eyes stay locked onto one other. He drags the backside of his fingers across her collarbone; she tries (and fails) to hide the breath it forces her to collect. Ever patient, Levi's weighted touch drifts slowly to the center of her chest. His fingers first wrap around the button of her blouse, teases it open with one expert flick. Mikasa focuses on steadying her heart rate, but with his touch so close, it's guaranteed he feels the speeding rate.

Levi leaves the next button fastened; instead, his fingers fan out and his palm glides across her right breast. She waits for him to cup her, prepares to remain still. But he hovers in his touch, damning her to internally admit how badly she wants him to hold tighter.

When he speaks, he looks straight at her. "Is this what I'm projecting?"

 _This._ He rests his thumb firmly on her sternum, then the rest of his hand follows suit, his touch now cradling her entire curve. (Hard to be self-conscious about their modest size, she notes for a second time she's just the right size for Levi to take a handful.) A jolt strikes through her, one he electrifies again as he thumbs deliberately on the clothing above her nipple. Mikasa bites her lip, determined not to speak or move as she meets his steadied gaze.

He doesn't wait for a verbal response (a peaked nipple is response, enough). Next his touch descends from the swell of her breast down each rib, slows further when he reaches beneath her navel. Levi's one hand finally wraps around her waist, and though it's a strong hold, Mikasa already knows it isn't meant to last.

He's studying every blink of her lashes, measures the time span between each breath. Then, he trails the pad of his thumb down her pelvic bone, closing in on the center.

Eyes piercing, spoken several octaves lower. "Or this?"

 _This._ Not the sternum this time, but the stitching of the buttons on her pants. He's proven capable of unclasping buttons with just one hand, but he doesn't undo these ones without her consent. His thumb traverses the vertical line of stitching, presses in deeper to compensate for the thick material. With the expertise (no, the _familiarity_ ) in which he found her nipple, he finds her clit beneath the fabric, begins to encircle it. 

It's instinct, pulsing desire, entirely thoughtless; Mikasa leans into his touch.

Her lips betray her further when they part in anticipation, but he betrays himself, too. The corner of his mouth gradually lifts into a subtle, yet unmistakable smirk. She simultaneously wants to slap it off his face and feel it crushed beneath her lips.

As if he can tell, Levi draws closer, hovers over the shell of her ear. The heightened awareness from his looming presence, close enough to breathe in his signature scent of clean linen, cedar and today's sweat— it's too much.

"What's it gonna be, brat?" His whispered words are gravelly, no less the reason there's a pulsing heat between her thighs.

It's tangible; Mikasa feels the burden of indecision release from her at once. Though it was a heavy weight, it was admittedly not securely tied down- it's lifted too easily, gone too fast, and she doesn't have the mental wherewithal to question it.

She tries to keep the words stern, but they're breathy and broken. "J-just don't kiss me this time."

He grunts, but she barely has time to register the sound; it's an aggressive vigor much like the first time they collided, fast and almost furious. Levi's probing touch over the stitching is replaced by his entire hand as takes hold of her inner thigh. Thumb pressed firm against her slit, the rest of his fingers slide between her ass cheeks. Possessive, as though he is needed to hold her up straight ( _hell, maybe he is)_ and Mikasa bites her bottom lip harder, stubborn and silent.

Too heady, she doesn't hear how he turns grim. "You'll have to be more specific. Don't kiss you here?"

His thumb moves deliberately to what would be inside of her if it weren't for the thick material of her pants.

Wilting from the wanton massaging of his hand, the vivid memories of the sort of _kissing_ he refers to – it's enough to convince Mikasa there's a thin, thin line between tease and torture. She falls further into his touch, the start of an unbridled moan halted too little, too late.

Levi leans in further, closes the distance of the last possible space between them; his lips rest dangerously close to her own. "Or don't kiss you here."

It's not a question. There's a bitterness that doesn't match the intimate placement of their lips, how he graces over to what could be (should be) the start of a kiss. In this split second, Mikasa realizes the millimeter of a distance between their lips is far worse than the one of fabric blocking his hand. But it's too late.

So abrupt, it feels like she's falling – Levi withdraws both his stilled hand and his nearing lips. By the time she blinks, he stands several feet away; an unimpressed but otherwise stilled expression as he stares at the tent's exit. For a full moment she's too caught up from the intoxication of what almost happened to discern why it is longer happening.

A quick, cursory glance beneath his waistline informs her that he is not unaffected; there's a taut pull of fabric over the bulge of what she can easily visualize is beneath (has been visualizing for weeks, if she's honest with herself). Her knees starts to wobble, but she straightens to full attention at this overt sign of weakness.

It has been sixty seconds too long; she flushes, embarrassed.

Maybe an ordinary woman would be demure, or perhaps be bold enough to question him; but Mikasa isn't ordinary. Instead, she removes her hands from their stabilizing hold on the table, ignores the uncomfortable pulsing between her thighs. He appears bored and while she doesn't believe it for a second ( _only fucking Levi can remain so composed with an erection)_ , she knows two can play this game. And swear-by-the-Walls, she's determined to play it just as well.

Mikasa clears her throat. "What was it that you needed me for?"

Levi looks at her as if he expects nothing else (and she supposes he doesn't; after all, it was her who mentioned their last intimate encounter). He gestures toward the prominent map she noticed earlier; though he doesn't point to it in particular, she can assume he's referring to the metal L-shaped ruler. It frames around a southern valley their caravan camped at a few weeks past.

When he speaks, it's strictly back to business. "Luka and Briella have spoken with the other family leaders."

Levi joins her side at the table. It is furiously attractive that he is so shameless about his arousal. Her jaw clenches, she tries not to press her legs together to halt the dissatisfied tension. (The game is short-lived; she lost before it even started.)

He places two fingers on the valley she's already identified. "Half of the caravan will set up a temporary encampment here under Luka's direction, the other half will return back to the walls with Briella."

"Temporary?"

"For a few months, before it's the thick of winter. That should be enough time to map out the center of the territory and lay a framework for roads." Here, he points to the highlands outside the valley that are nearby a strong river. "After winter, Luka will return with the builders. Then after basic infrastructure is set, Briella will bring those ready to start farming."

Mikasa is glad he's still focused on the map; it gives her enough time to hide the abrupt epiphany ( _what about you and I?_ ) and straighten up. Levi turns to her, his own thoughts veiled.

"That's a good location for agriculture," she says, a seemingly safe remark, and the truth, too. Sari has spoken extensively about her favoritism toward this valley's potential yield for crops. Mikasa looks back down at the map. "I remember the soil was rich."

Levi quirks a brow. "You've been minding the soil, have you?"

She swiftly glances to him. Unbidden thoughts ( _her wrists bound beneath his strong grasp, her lean fingers pulling through soft dirt_ ) are promptly suppressed. "I'm here to help, aren't I?"

Even though all he does is blink and retreat one step from the table, she knows he's impressed with her nonchalant response. There aren't many things that impress him, even less people who can, but she's often been the exception.

"I'll make sure to let the farmers know you approve," Levi says dryly, and it takes everything in her not to roll her eyes.

She's still too bothered (wet, and wanting) to banter. With no steam left for anger, apathy is an adequate alternative.

"Then what's next?" For some reason, her tongue won't move to say what it means. _What's next for us?_

What she doesn't anticipate is the long pause. He returns his scrutiny to the map; something in the manner he avidly stares down at it reminds her of the way he focused on the dirt instead of her when she first propositioned him. An empty cavern or violent storms of thought, there's no way for her to guess which is more likely. It's almost a full moment before he turns back to her; unreadable as always, but something about the severe set of his jaw tells her it is deliberate.

"There are some things I need to take care of on the coast.” He says it carefully, like it’s only the first half of a statement.

But there's no additional verbalization.

Mikasa stares at him. During the war, his words were always given as orders, her responses often restricted by obedience. After the defeat of the titans, she noticed his deliberate attempts to reverse this trend. He isn't only adamant about the removal of 'Captain' before his name, but in other matters, too; he rarely makes suggestions and never extends invitations. For an event as ordinary as Hange's birthday celebrations, he had simply told her the time. When it came to her joining the caravan, he had only mentioned she'd been cowering behind the walls.

Is this the same approach now to ask her if she'll go with him to the coast?

But he doesn't ask, there's nothing in his disposition that offers her a clue one way or the other, and Mikasa can't afford to misread the sentiment. Sari having knowledge of Levi's accomplishments that she knows nothing about is still a fresh wound. More than that, it's evidence that points toward her misinterpretation.

She's not sure why she told him not to kiss her, but it is the same reason she decides not to inquire if he wants for her to go with him or not.

It's already been too long that she hasn't spoken; Mikasa's response comes out rushed, perhaps even rude. "I'll help Briella lead the caravan back."

Levi nods. The nodule in his throat lifts briefly, and Mikasa wonders if it's from swallowing the rest of his words, but he's casual when turning back to the table. Like he was prepared for her to say as much, he pulls over a well-worn map and tells her she can take it with her.

Same as the other map, half of it is unfinished. It stretches from the coastline, throughout the outerlands, and into the center of the three walls. Unlike the cartography of her youth, this one ends with Mitras at the edge of the map instead of the center.

Levi finishes smoothing it out, drags over paper weights to hold down the edges. "Which route do you want to take back?"

Mikasa wonders if this is a trick question. She answers promptly, unwilling to be intimidated. "Whatever is safe, and fast."

"Alright. You'll recognize most of it." He places his index finger on their current location north of the caravan's chosen valley and starts to trace the route backwards.

He offers a few tips as he goes, makes recommendations for campsites, warns about a common trail stalked by potential bandits or thieves, notes the best river streams. Mikasa listens attentively and looks on without so much as blinking, abruptly nerved at the prospect of a leadership role she just unceremoniously inherited.

Nearing the end of the outerlands, she watches him trace the route past Wall Maria, where he recommends taking the caravan through one of the newer gates built south of the Holst District. Though this is the same gate they originally left through, she starts to interrupt him. This isn't the ordinary route he takes back; he always passes through the Shiganshina District before returning to Mitras.

Mikasa stops herself just in time.

Levi notices her clamped jaw and stiff shoulders; she knows that he does because his gaze passes over her like he's assessing malfunctioning equipment. He doesn't inquire, though. Instead, he finishes tracing the route back to Wall Sina.

This time, she doesn't hear a single word that he says. While her vision appears like it's focused on the map before them, in her mind the only thing she can see is her collection of dried flowers.

White daisies from Eren's gravesite in their hometown.

Nightshade vines in violet hues that took the door to the Jaeger basement hostage. 

Vivid blue chicory flowers sprung through unused paths in the war-ravaged district.

Other wildflowers too, but her favorite, the dandelions. Not confined only to Carla's kitchen view, but prevalent throughout her old backyard. 

"Oi, Mikasa. You listening?"

She isn't. Flustered, Mikasa looks up; as a cadet, she might have lied, nodded to him at once to cover herself. Now though, she just mumbles a half-apology.

He is surprisingly not annoyed to repeat himself, albeit the sarcasm from the original remark remains. "That's all. Think you can make it home without getting lost?"

But he has not given her the route that leads through what she considers home. Looking at the map again, Mikasa sees now that in order for him to make it through the Shiganshina District to collect the flowers for her, he would have to go out the way each and every time. In fact, based on the map's measurements, it'd take several days to get to her old home, and then another several days to return back to the most sensible path. Why would he do that?

An old, half-forgotten memory comes to mind—

 _Sasha snickering, "Captain Levi doesn't bring_ me _flowers." Mikasa oblivious, a polite response, "Oh, what does he bring you?" Sasha laughed as though it was as obvious as it was hilarious. Mikasa assumed then that it was – meat of course, probably wild boar from the outerlands or fish from the sea._

Now, Mikasa wonders if she misinterpreted that laugh, misunderstood the entire implication of the conversation.

Because the laws of gravity do not send a soldier without any ODM gear sailing upward into the sky the same as the laws of attraction do not send men on a week-long trip to gather a handful of wildflowers. 

Since she hasn't answered yet, and appears to not be listening for a second time, Levi scowls.

"What's wrong with you, Ackerman? Did you fall off your horse earlier, hit your head?"

She's too busy in her own thoughts to be offended. The one and only moment from the morning in the meadow she adamantly refused to revisit now springs into motion; it's greedy, impatient and vibrant, demanding for its own turn to be seen.

 _Levi is dazed too, eyes softened without the familiar capability of one who kills (no, it's not that, it's something else – softened by something else she cannot or will not name). With more care than she's ever seen him wield a weapon, ever seen him take hold of_ anything _, he gathers her loose strands of hair and places them behind her ear. But that's not enough; whatever he can't speak aloud he can speak into her skin. Hand still gentle as it cradles her, now he leans forward to meet the most vulnerable nook of her bare neck– not to bite, not to mark. It's a kiss so tender she forgets he's ever held a blade, that she's ever followed his lead into blood-soaked battle. No, it's a look, a touch, and a kiss that anchors her fully in the present and convinces her she is safe. And though it asks for nothing, it promises everything._

Mikasa takes three abrupt steps backward. Her thoughts are colliding into themselves at a velocity she can't keep up with, her mind whirling so thoroughly it feels like her entire frame is spinning, too.

She should tell him he doesn't need to waste time rerouting a caravan. It's never been about the ground the flowers are plucked from, but the thrill of realizing he thinks of her while he's gone, that he always intends to find her when he comes back.

She should admit how she thought to be cared for meant to have a scarf given in the aftermath of tragedy, but really she has known for awhile now that it is the moment he even noticed her need for a jade necklace pendant to hold onto. 

She should kiss into his skin the way he kissed into hers, silently speaking her affection (Oh _Walls_ , who is she kidding, this is and has been love) without the necessity of words.

She should—

Levi takes a step toward her, a rare look of concern as he almost takes hold of her arm to keep her standing straight.

Like a strike of lightning, it overtakes her: not her natural strength, but that of the Ackerman bloodline. Steadies her position, fortifies each and every nerve, and permits ( _demands)_ her body to move, to escape the enemy that is herself.

"I'll find Briella and discuss details with her in the morning." Her voice is small, but it does not shake.

Curious but unquestioning, Levi offers a curt nod. Though it is not a dismissal, her presence was not ordered. She gives half a nod before promptly exiting the tent. Mikasa maintains the even strides of a typical departure despite the _screaming_ of her limbs, until she at last reaches the entrance of the forest. When she's certain she is out of sight and deep into the woods, her legs quicken without conscious thought; she takes off into a full-fledged sprint, leaves crunching beneath her boots and branches snagging against her skin.

Titans could be chasing her and Mikasa wouldn't be running any faster.

.

.

Levi stares at the map she's left behind from her abrupt departure. Fearless when it came to a stealth attack against the mocking and murderous Beast Titan; a coward now, dreading the moment in the morning when he'll have to find her and hand it off to her. He sighs, rakes a hand through ink-black hair.

If there are Gods, they'll have to forgive him. Right now he'd like nothing more than a swarm of titans brought back to these lands. He'd slay them all.

Though they are an imaginary set of scales, that doesn't make them any less real: years of choosing careful words, planning the pace between their interactions, weighing what he shares and how much he'll give to be the precise amount she can carry. All of it to avoid what has now happened regardless.

He can't blame her. An Ackerman is built for fight or flight.

Inviting her to the coastline, or letting her draw her own conclusions about the caravan's ordinary route back – those were planned, had been weighed and set accordingly. But she tipped the balance of the scales when she confided in him at dawn by the river; she _destroyed_ the scales by propositioning him after their sparring.

Maybe if he hadn't kissed her, maybe if he'd just—

No point deliberating on it now. So-called Humanity's Strongest, _what a load of horse shit_. He had no strength at all to restrain himself that morning in the meadow, barely had it in him now.

Levi puts two hands to the table, stares again at the map. Oblivious to the half of what he's done or spoken over the years, but not about those damn dried flowers; she noticed at once the differential routes.

He looks next to the coastline territories, tries to focus on the sound of crashing waves and cawing of seagulls, not those waiting for him to make the final decision on a position he's being offered for the last time.

Seated behind his desk, a dark chuckle as he pours himself another glass of red. _If you think she's frightened off now by knowing you go out of your way to get her a handful of weeds, wait until she finds out the reason you've stalled for so long in moving to the coast._

Levi pinches the bridge of his nose. "Shut up, Erwin."

.

.


	4. Already Convinced

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Mikasa doesn't distract herself with sipping tea, skimming over porcelain, or the second opinions of her Ghosts; instead, she thinks about it for herself._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your reviews have meant the world to me. Your insight, observations and considerations, and of course your encouraging and kind words, are so deeply appreciated. Thank you so ridiculously much. xo

**Beyond the Walls**

_Chapter Four: Already Convinced_

* * *

Lost then found as he stares into the nexus of celestial skies and infinite sea. Their coupling blurs: iridescent glimmers dip down to the constant rhythm of dark waves. Marred on occasion by an ephemeral wink; the sun's reflection is too pure to be called white. He has a half-formed theory that the color of a soul isn't marine blue, but the full depths of an ocean.

Levi tries to place a pin into their conclusion, but it's futile – the sky and sea have a perpetual connection. At the furthest point the eye can see, it should be an end. Instead, the horizon is just the beginning.

"Thought I'd find you here, mate."

It requires too much effort to turn from the view. So, Levi doesn't. Harlo seems to understand; says nothing else, tucks both hands into his pockets and waits patiently beside him. No less enamored, Harlo and his shock of red hair also look onward.

From an aerial view offered by the blunt edge of a cliff, the ocean is endless. Promises of eternity are made and kept with the resurgence of tides. Uncertain on where it is sapphire-shaded greens or rich oil painting blues- each unidentified hue has a dimension made hypnotic as sunlight slants into the sea. The longer Levi stares, the more shades he sees.

The real hypnosis is how easy it is to believe there's nothing else that exists behind him: not the unmapped forests of the outerlands or the grit of the Underground behind the walls, least of all the rocky terrain of memories in his battle-ridden past. There's only the sea and whatever else lies ahead. Every wave that breaks is another note sung, their melodies the response to his unspoken question: it's never-ending, never-ending, never-ending.

Without his permission, Levi's lids blink for relief. It's a physical interruption from the reverie, enough to remove him from the ocean's trance. Like waking up from a dream, Levi sleepily looks over to the older man beside him.

"Good to see you, Harlo."

Unbothered by the tardy response, Harlo grins easily and extends a friendly hand to shake. The two men clutch onto each other's forearms; while Levi doesn't offer a flash of teeth for a smile, his greeting is no less warm.

"Good to see you too, mate. Been waiting for you for a couple weeks now. You take the long way 'round or something?"

"Or something," Levi admits without further explanation, unable to help it when his boots shuffle, turning him once more to face the sea. "How's everything?"

"Good, good," Harlo says, though it's apparent there's more going unsaid.

Harlo takes stock of the situation; Levi's ordinarily pristine attire is wrinkled and worn, fully packed travel bags are stacked beside him, and his dark bay mare waits nearby, impatiently snorting, like she knows her stable treatment is being postponed by her sea-struck rider. He finishes his scanning and ultimately decides it's not the right time to make an additional comment.

"Tch." Levi notices, tosses him a quick halfhearted glare. Then, without the usual vitriol. "Go on."

Harlo laughs with good humor, grins again. "Oh, I don't mean to bother you mate, it's just I don't understand what's holding you up. You've got the perfect job lined up, friendly community of coastal folks who love the shite out of you, that nice private bungalow tucked into the southern coves—"

Levi's sharp glance interrupts Harlo.

"Aye, I know about that." Harlo lifts his hands up, palms facing outward to plea for mercy. "Don't worry, I told the others you were only looking into it, nothing final."

"Hn." Amused, but Levi offers nothing else.

"Besides," Harlo adds, an almost whimsical intonation. "I _know_ you love it here."

Making his point, he gestures to the sight Levi still admires. Proving the same point, Levi can't take his eyes off of the sea.

Thus Harlo's grand conclusion. "What more could a man want?"

Characteristic and expected silence at first. But then, a crack in the ordinarily polished veneer; Levi lets out a strangled laugh. Even with only a few years of friendship under their belt, Harlo can spot it with ease: the other man might be looking ahead, but it's no longer the ocean he sees. Heavy-lidded, eyes clouded over in the paradox of yearning, like there's something else, someone else he's remembering.

"Oh," Harlo says sharply, the sudden realization. Then, too quiet. "Oh, I see."

More than a full moment passes. Eventually, Harlo puts both hands behind his head, relaxes into the bowing of his arms.

"Must be one hell of a woman," he remarks, chuckling.

Reluctantly, Levi looks over to him; somber, in stark contrast to the redhead's mischief. "You have no idea."

.

.

.

The heel of Mikasa's boot presses down into his neck. Bald, stocky, generally unpleasant features; being drenched in nervous sweat isn't doing the thief any favors. Trembling already, the knife in his clutch falls to the ground at once. She tilts her head, inspecting him.

"How many others?" Spoken less like a question and more like a threat.

He starts to shake his head, but she leans down further, her pointed stare needing no aid from a weapon.

"T-that's all of us, miss." Like he's choking, his words garble out weak promises. "It, it was j-just the f-four of us."

Mikasa briskly scans their surroundings; soft afternoon light filtering through the forest's lush canopy, dense woods interrupted only by an unofficial path of trampled dirt carved out by the first caravans. The other three men lay unconscious beside him in varied states of disarray; a broken wrist, some fractured ribs, perhaps a concussion or two. She turns back to the self-proclaimed last man standing.

"I assume I don't need to tell you what will happen if I find out that's not true."

Mikasa's ordinary composure, calm and collected regardless of the circumstance, seems exceptionally cold while opposed to his flushed and frantic one.

"N-no, miss, I ain't lying, I swear." Another shrill whisper. "I swear it."

Standing several feet behind her but peering over with curiosity, Briella offers a disapproving click of her tongue. "Bet they heard the women were leading the caravan back."

"Bet they did." Mikasa digs her heel in further.

It prompts a gargling groan and a slew of pathetic whimpers, the latter of which are misunderstood by a more charitable Briella. Though the caravan's leader has a hardness to her that suits her rugged adventures in the outerlands, she lacks the callousness afforded from military training. Cautious, she asks. "Is he seriously injured?"

"No."

Mikasa's brisk response surprises Briella, who doesn't seem wholly convinced.

"That's the sound of a wounded ego," Mikasa explains, sparing an unimpressed glance to the red-faced man. "Not a crushed windpipe."

Alarmed, he halts his pitiful mutterings at once.

"Huh," Briella muses, enlightened.

Mikasa turns to Briella with half a shrug and then lifts her boot. While he scrambles backward still on his bum, she reaches down for his knife and evaluates the reliable balance of metal and custom engraved hilt. It hosts a common surname.

"Family heirloom?" She guesses.

"Y-yes, miss."

With an easy flick, she sends the knife speedily sailing toward him. It strikes expertly between his legs, sinking into the dirt harmlessly even as he shrieks.

"Perhaps consider a more honorable profession, rather than being the family disappointment."

Redder still, he mumbles some avid form of agreement superimposed onto an apology. Mikasa has already turned away, though. She looks to Briella, unconcerned at the aftermath of her defensive maneuvers when the four-man team tried to hold them up for robbery. Tried, and failed immediately.

"We can keep going," Mikasa tells her.

"What about them?"

An imperceptible shrug. "Impossible to know which men are the vengeful sorts, so I'll keep additional guards in the rear. But I don't expect we'll see them again."

Briella looks back at the lone conscious man crawling over to the others in the dirt and then she breaks out into a glorious grin. With her freckled face and unruly silver-streaked curls attempting to spring free from their pins, it's a smile that suits her.

"Me neither."

Mikasa finishes a sweep of their surroundings, debriefs with a few of the men who help guard over the caravan, and reassures some of the children with a rare smile. The caravan's leader has been waiting with Mikasa's horse at the front of the line. Briella hands the reins over with remarks of gratitude when Mikasa returns.

"No need," Mikasa says, pragmatic and honest.

Once the caravan is back on track at a steady pace, the two women at the front enjoying a peaceful trot, Briella looks over to her travelling companion.

"You know, I feel I owe you an apology. Until now I rather thought Levi might be exaggerating about you."

 _Levi._ The unexpected mention of him sends a searing pain straight through her. It hasn't been easy to keep him from her thoughts (the opposite, each additional day apart only worsens the tear in the seams of how she'd put herself together) but at least he wasn't there to see, no one spoke of him.

Until now. It's a sledgehammer shattering the rib cage meant to protect her heart.

Briella misinterprets her grieved expression for concern. "Oh trust me, it was all good things. Still, I found it hard to believe half of it."

An uncontrollable desire to know precisely how Levi spoke of her, what words he chose and in what tone he said them in, ricochets through her mind. After three weeks apart, it is the closest she can get to some semblance of connection to (affection from) him. No different than a pang from hunger, she realizes now she's starving for it.

"Well, expert thieves can't compare to titans, and these men were no experts." It's the best Mikasa can offer.

"Understandably so," Briella agrees, but her forlorn smile is thin and it doesn't reach her eyes. Mikasa knows the caravan's matriarch is actually keenly aware she cannot understand.

"Well, you know, if this sort of thing interests you," Briella drawls, pausing to evaluate Mikasa while she speaks, but finds no signs one way or the other, then continues. "Luka and I will need a replacement for Levi. I'd hire you in a heartbeat, Mikasa."

Like whiplash from ODM gear, Mikasa's head snaps over. "He's not staying on?"

Briella shakes her head regretfully. "Other commitments or something of the sort. I'm confident we can double whatever else he's being offered, but I have a feeling for a man like that, it's not about the funds."

Mikasa quickly looks ahead again. _A man like that._

It's not the most relevant memory with him that comes to mind, but the most recent. Morning dew on the wet grasslands. Muted light announcing the sun's upcoming arrival. An end of summer breeze almost chill enough for her to shiver. His final instructions were spoken softly, as though the others were sleeping nearby and he didn't want to wake them. All the while, his glass-gray eyes lingered on her.

Acutely aware she'd be departing in only a few moments, it felt simpler to stare right back, to let her fingers pause onto his hand when she took the map from his grip. He noticed (of course he noticed, he was Levi) but he only told her to be careful, the words strange to hear. They both knew she didn't need to be told. What she didn't know was the words he actually meant by them.

She was prepared with all of what she meant to say, needed to convey to him. But the possibility of those words remained lodged in her throat, stuck in a thick sludge that refused to let them out. It didn't allow her to swallow them properly, either. (Levi noticed that, too.)

 _A man like that_. It feels like she is finishing a puzzle only to discover it has missing pieces. She knows more about Levi than most, but his priorities or his intentions are never clear. Where she fits as a priority, if she is considered one of his intentions, Mikasa still isn't sure.

Briella remains oblivious, used to Mikasa's quieter disposition. "Any ideas what he's got planned after he gets back from the coast? Think he's going to retire early? I do hope the Crown took good care of you war heroes."

Mikasa grinds her teeth together to keep at bay the surge of – of what? No stranger to loss (the opposite really, her and loss have been lifelong friends), she thought she knew the full potency of grief. Without intending to, Briella has prompted the origin of half her pain.

"I'm not sure. He hasn't told me."

The other half is the vacancy in her chest. Now that her ribs are shattered and pulled apart, she finds her heart is no longer there. It is countless miles away, heading in the opposite direction.

Mikasa reaches for her neck, but finds it bare. At this moment, it's not burgundy linen in mind. She wishes more than anything to feel the thin chain of white gold and smooth jade stone.

Needing to change the topic of the conversation, Mikasa adds. "Thank you, I'll consider it. What does a person like me— well, a person with my skills— do in the outerlands?"

Briella's eyes widen with secondhand excitement. "Oh, the opportunities would be endless, dear."

Mikasa remembers the sense of wonder she felt when she first left with the caravan. It is not something that diminished in the last few months, but seems to have amplified. Maybe if she isn't sure how to plan for the next day, she can at least start by thinking over all the options. With more courage needed than the moment before a battle, she decides to ask Briella.

"Will you tell me about them?"

.

.

Later that night, Mikasa sits alone before the dying embers of the campsite's fire. She remembers again her final moments with Levi, this goodbye different than all the others: not only because of what transpired between them, but because it had been the first time since the war she'd spent so much time with him. For several months, she woke up every morning knowing he would be right there, and every day she had the chance to see and speak with him. It was so much time (not enough time); it's frustrating how mindlessly she'd taken it for granted.

Him passing the map over to her, the one that caused her to _realize …_ , - the one she'd forgotten when she left in a rush. Her fingers paused on top of his own, staring at him, praying to the Gods, to the Walls, to Whoever might be listening for the courage to change her mind.

It wasn't Eren or Armin who shouted at her, but herself. _Offer to help on the coast. Offer to go with him. Go with him._

But They had left her to her own devices then, and she remains a bitter agnostic now.

It's not the first time she's witnessed the breakdown in her communication with Levi, the _something more_ between them like a weak flame waiting to be fanned, a potential fire if only it had enough oxygen to breathe.

Like all the other times before, she's still not sure. Was it Levi who spoke too late, or was it her who left too soon?

.

.

.

There's only one thing she's missed about the cities behind the Walls. Not the markets or crowds, not her responsibilities to the Queen or suite in the royal keep, but the knowledge that her friends who are living are near. Though she's never been consistent in spending time with them, at least in the moments when she's desperate for them, they're always there. Hange's excited chatter on intriguing projects, unassuming bantering over beers with Connie, Jean's introductions to social circles and activities if her interest did pique, and Sasha's easygoing company, always pleased to see her and never bitter when it's been too long since the last time.

It's Sasha who she seeks out the first week she returns to Mitras. Despite never establishing boundaries or expressing limits on conversation topics, Sasha always seems to see the invisible lines Mikasa keeps.

When Mikasa shows up unexpectedly on an early Saturday morning, Sasha doesn't even seem surprised.

"Goodness Mikasa, do you need me to cut your hair?"

There's something about these first words, the strong sense of kinship and familiarity, which eases any remaining reservations Mikasa has on why she decided to seek out her old friend.

"Actually, I'm thinking of letting it grow out."

"It _is_ grown out," Sasha points to the length resting over Mikasa's shoulders, admiring it. "Come in, come in. Want breakfast? I'm starved."

Mikasa smiles. _Some things never change._ "Sure, I haven't eaten yet."

The two of them talk about everything and nothing; the caravan's progress, Connie's new business venture, Jean's two girlfriends he had while she was gone, the upcoming autumn harvest, Historia's most recent liberal reform efforts, drunken mishaps on Sasha's birthday outing last month.

"You and Connie, huh?" Mikasa holds her tea between two hands, the approving smile in her eyes.

Sasha grins immediately and turns back to the cabinet to pull out more bread. "Me and Connie. He's moved in, you know."

"Really?"

"Last month. I was a bit nervous at first, even though it's not like we haven't lived together before, but still, it's different from barracks and wartime, of course."

Mikasa lifts a brow, letting Sasha share what she wants to.

"Different and much _better_ ," Sasha clarifies. "Walls, I'm so ridiculously happy. What do you think took us so long?"

"You don't want me to answer that."

Sasha laughs. "Right, Connie is a bit daft."

"A bit," Mikasa agrees, soft laughter swallowed by her next sip of tea.

Sasha lifts up slices of bread. "Want more toast?"

Mikasa has lost count of how many extra slices Sasha's already consumed, but she's been full for awhile. "No, I have a normal-sized appetite."

Sasha waves the bread dismissively and reopens the jar of jam. "So, does this mean Levi's back now, too?"

Mikasa is keenly aware the timing and placement of her mentioning Levi for the first time is after her own mention of Sasha's romantic developments. Still, she appreciates the indirect line of questioning.

"He had some business with the coastline territories."

"You brought the caravan back then, did you?"

As always, Mikasa is grateful that Sasha hasn't pushed. "I did."

Sasha seems to notice that Mikasa's lack of additional commentary is because she plans to speak more on the first subject. Sasha looks up, an expectant gaze with lifted brows.

After another breath, Mikasa takes the plunge.

"Promise me you won't talk to Connie about this?"

That's not what she meant to say, and she inwardly scolds herself for being a coward who needed to stall with a preamble.

"Promise." A flash of such sincere honesty, she doesn't doubt Sasha for a moment.

Mikasa puts her teacup down. "I think that I - well, no. I know that I've become attached to Levi."

"Attached," Sasha repeats, a burgeoning smile. "If I translate that from the Ackerman dialect, that means you love him, doesn't it?"

Mikasa blinks once, and then blinks again. She's unaware, but somehow not surprised, if their friends have named her and Levi's speech patterns.

Since Sasha has technically done the hard part for her, Mikasa finds herself nodding.

Sasha presses a lump of blackberry preserve onto her toast. "Is that supposed to be news? Sorry, 'Kasa, but even Connie already knows that."

"W-what?"

"Everyone does. I mean, I think on some level Jean does, though he's a bit of a willful fool, isn't he?"

Mikasa sits with her surprise while simply Sasha holds the space, munching on her toast.

"I'm not sure that it's mutual," Mikasa finally says, the original reason she found herself craving her friend's company.

"It's mutual," Sasha says easily, unbothered that she's just taken a full bite.

Mikasa's unconvinced frown prompts Sasha to continue, crumbs falling from her lips. "I mean, Hange is his closest friend and they don't have one of those."

"One of what?"

Sasha points her half-eaten toast to Mikasa's neck. Mikasa reaches for it; it's the teardrop jade pendant necklace she had put back on the first night she arrived back to her suite.

"Well, Hange isn't the sort to wear jewelry."

This evokes a spirited laugh from Sasha. "Oh, and _you're_ the sort?"

Mikasa's cheeks blush, knowing she's right. Most girls at least have pierced ears, even if it's with false gems, but Mikasa's never bothered with any of that.

While Sasha prepares her next slice of toast, Mikasa pushes her hair back, abruptly aware that not only does she need another person's advice, but Sasha is likely the best one to give it. Eren and Armin haven't been talkative on the subject, only sharing roguish smiles and snickering between themselves.

"We kissed," Mikasa says, trying and failing for indifference.

Sasha pauses with the knife mid-slather. "Now that's news."

Mikasa nods, distracts herself by running the tips of her fingers on the edge of the teacup.

"Well, come on," Sasha presses, eyes widened with a hunger no less pronounced than when she used to crave extra rations. "You two have had sparks flying for years. Surely there was more than _kissing_."

What little was left of Mikasa's blush resurfaces at once, but she only spares a fleeting glance to Sasha, neither confirming nor denying.

"Right, you never were one to _kiss_ and tell." Sasha practices patience as she seals the jam's lid. "I'm sure it was splendid though, eh?"

Mikasa halts her roaming fingers but doesn't look up.

"Alright, alright," Sasha concedes. "Then tell me at least, are you going with him?"

"To where?" It's out of her mouth before Mikasa can think first.

Sasha shrugs, takes another bite of her toast. "I don't know. Wherever he's going that he's thinking of selling his house for."

Mikasa accidentally jolts her teacup when she snaps her head up, the porcelain clattering against the saucer.

Sasha becomes serious and actually puts down her toast. "He asked Connie if he sells his house, if we would be interested in buying it at a tenth of the value. Just for sake of the proper paperwork. You didn't know?"

"No." Mikasa grabs a nearby napkin to clean up the splash of tea that spilled over. "We haven't exactly talked."

While Sasha thoughtfully taps her fingers down next to her forgotten toast, Mikasa wonders if the other woman knows the predicament can be fully blamed on her own cowardice. Regret that she ran from Levi's tent starts to bleed over to regret now that she's even brought it up.

Sasha stops tapping her fingers. Mikasa is uncharacteristically nervous when she looks over to her friend, but Sasha is as gracious and honest as always.

"This is a good thing, Mikasa. Don't you think it's time you both let yourselves have something good?"

Mikasa doesn't distract herself with sipping tea, skimming over porcelain, or the second opinions of her Ghosts; instead, she thinks about it for herself.

.

.

.

For all of his insults, the absence of the expected decorative statute is jarring. Levi stares at the guard posted beside the Queen. It's the same traditional armor and royal emblem on the breastplate, but a soldier he doesn't recognize is wearing it. Blonde, broad shoulders, male.

"Welcome back, Levi. Here to ask about the orphanages?" Historia prompts.

Levi belatedly realizes he's entered the royal office without adhering to proper etiquette. He offers a late bow, which the Queen waves off.

"Yes," he answers, focused again as he approaches the Queen at her desk. There's a tea cart that captures his attention and Historia tells him the kettle should still be hot.

Then she looks over to the lone guard in the room. "You can go, Otto."

While he won't vocally disobey her, his hesitation is more than obvious as he skeptically looks between her and the guest.

Historia laughs before offering him a pitying smile. "Oh dear, I mean no insult, but if Levi does plan to hurt me, you won't be able to stop him."

Levi says nothing as he looks through the options of tea leaves.

Historia adds, "And I'm sure that's not his intention."

"I don't know," Levi considers, collecting the spearmint. "Depends on how much of my proposal you've found coins for."

He's not watching to see, but the guard must express concern at that remark before Historia assures him it's all in good humor and Levi is a 'most trusted friend.' Levi finishes preparing the tea, takes hold of it on the rim instead of the handle, and settles into the seat at the front of her desk. Otto watches him warily while he exits the room.

When Levi looks up to the Queen, her ghost of a teasing smile warns him she doesn't plan on discussing the orphanages first.

"She's fine. Not sick, not injured or anything of the sort," Historia assures him. Then, certainly deliberate about her choice of a melodramatic pause, she clarifies. "She resigned."

Levi realizes there's no point in pretending. "When?"

"Technically, she gave me notice three weeks ago."

"Technically." He repeats, unable to pose it as a question.

Too regal to shrug, but not above a knowing smirk, the Queen looks at him while he hovers over his steaming tea.

"Could see it in her eyes the moment she got back that it was only a matter of time. Any idea why that might be?"

Levi stares at her, but Historia already knows better than to expect a response.

She sighs, her false disappointment obvious. "Only Walls more treacherous than the ones we fought to protect are the ones Mikasa fortified around her heart. Tell me, you think someone's finally knocked them down?"

It doesn't matter that the tea is too hot. He takes a long sip, unflinching when the scalding liquid coats his throat. When Historia chuckles, he ignores it.

"Alright, _Your Grace_ ," Levi says, placing his tea down and steadily meeting her gaze. "Give me the progress reports."

"Right." She's still smug, but she searches her desk for the folder her aides have prepared for him.

When Levi looks over the reports and newly approved budget, he tries to concentrate on the notes and making an analysis, not the thought of crumbled brick and mortar.

.

.

.

Albeit a strange retirement gift from the Queen, Mikasa finds herself running a grateful hand over the fine materials. An exquisite princess-style overcoat for formal occasions. Matching sets of camisole tops and lace undergarments for decidedly less formal ones. Two new mid-length skirts; one of them is a lavender chiffon she's certain she'll never wear, unless there's a Braus-Springer wedding after winter ends. Several scarves in her signature colors of ebony, navy and burgundy. Casual daytime dresses to replace soldier's garb. One silken bathrobe with a floral pattern that makes it difficult not to think of other flowers entirely.

The sun must be lowering itself toward the horizon. Late afternoon light tries to break through thick low-lying clouds and an autumnal breeze filters through Mikasa's opened balcony door. She remains seated on her suite's sofa, folding and unfolding the various materials. Every few minutes her gaze wanders to the note card from Historia lying at the opposite side.

Kind words of gratitude were written with royal care on thick parchment; but at the bottom, scribbled like a schoolchild passing a note, one erroneous addition. _By the way, Levi is back in Mitras._

Mikasa continues to refold the clothes. She reaches the cobalt blue of the robe and pauses to admire the embroidery of ivory peonies. _Levi is back in Mitras_. Unable to help it, her fist clenches on the silk, wrinkles the fabric in her clutch.

This time she remembers her conversation with Sasha from the other week. _"This is a good thing, Mikasa."_

She drops the fabric. Before courage from this conviction can wear off, she grabs the slate blue camisole, matching underclothes, and dark navy skirt to get dressed.

Either Historia knew her well enough to know not to bother with jewelry, or she'd noticed the jade stone set against white gold and thought it was more than enough.

.

.

With a peace offering tucked to her side and steps paced to outmatch the ominous threats of darkening clouds, Mikasa approaches the path leading up to Levi's home.

It belatedly occurs to her that he may not be home, or worse, could have another guest. She pauses at the end of the pebbled path, staring at the recently trimmed fauna surrounding his front door. The distance between her feet and that door abruptly feel impossible to cross.

One large raindrop lands on Mikasa's cheek, startling her. She looks upward; it seems the tumultuous clouds are offering a final warning before the start of their downpour.

She takes one deep breath, then promptly crosses the distance and lands two fast knocks onto his front door.

There's not a wide range of emotions Levi portrays outside the context of battle, but she sees it now when he opens the door; surprise flashing over his stoic features. Her name comes out of his mouth like he might stumble over it.

"Ackerman."

Mikasa's prepared words are stolen at the sight of him. Though there have been longer stretches of time spent apart, none of them compared to the last sixteen weeks without him. It's a dizzying relief; ink-black hair trimmed neat to frame aristocratic features, steel-shaded eyes as sharp and sturdy as the matching metal of a blade, alabaster skin a rich contrast to his black dress shirt with rolled up sleeves, an overall presence of strength that would exist even without the muscular physique to prove it. He has proven that too, though.

Luckily, Levi doesn't notice she's tongue-tied. He looks down to the token in her arm; an unopened, full bottle of red wine with a seemingly ancient label. Mikasa uses the last second of his distraction to wet her lips and force a few words out.

"I'm not sure that I'll ever see Sari again."

His eyes ping upward, evaluating her and the chosen words. "Maybe not."

She lifts her emptied hand, an open palm with five fingers outstretched. Then she curls them inward. "I still only have enough friends to count on one hand."

Levi blinks, and with it, he seems to soften. At the same time, the dark skies open, rain starting to fall in earnest.

But Mikasa doesn't pay the weather any attention. She lifts the bottle toward him. "I can't afford to lose a friend."

_I can't afford to lose you._

The unspoken words hang between them, Levi looking to the bottle in her grasp. When he lifts his gaze to finally look up at her, something tells her she's had nothing to worry about.

"You haven't." Then he stands back, opening the door to let her in. "Come on, brat."

Mikasa feels a weight immediately lift from her shoulders. She crosses the threshold and hands him the bottle of wine. When he takes it, she's unable to help but admire the toned muscles revealed on his forearms or his lithe fingers she's spent far too many nights remembering in exceptional detail. 

"What's this one called?" Levi almost scrunches his nose while reading the label.

"Erwin would have liked it," she tells him instead, knowing that's all that matters.

He all but jerks his head toward her. The last time they shared red wine was the first and only time he mentioned the red he served came from Erwin's personal collection. He hadn't realized she figured it out on her own that all of the others had, too.

Mikasa points to the label. "All of Erwin's wine is full-bodied and earthy, like this one."

Though it isn't from Erwin's personal collection, Levi now grips it tighter, his gaze more attentive over the label.

"I know you know I don't like this shit." Levi, honest to the end.

Mikasa's lips quiver, wanting to smile. "Yeah, I do know."

Levi sighs, sounding more like a grumpy old man than a seasoned warrior. She follows him into the kitchen, watching him collect their various needed items.

"Does it need to breathe?" He sounds miserable to ask such a question.

Now, she does smile fully. "No, it's recommended but it isn't necessary."

Levi scowls at her obvious amusement and uncorks the wine with an expert hand for someone who doesn't prefer to drink the beverage. He is no less careful when pouring both of them half a glass than he was with removing the cork.

Resigning himself to it, he lifts the glass meant for her.

Mikasa takes the glass, but keeps it lifted. "For the moments that matter."

Her words sound too quiet to be considered brave, but she's too glad to be standing before him to care. If she didn't know him so well, she would have missed his brief pause entirely. Levi recovers fast enough.

He raises his glass and lets it rest against hers with a careful _clink._ He's almost as quiet as she had been, but he hasn't taken his storming-gray eyes off of her. "With the people who do."

The slamming against her ribs tells her there's no longer a vacancy in her chest.

.

.

They sit on the outside porch under the protection of the awning and simple luck that the rain slants sideways in the opposing direction. Neither of them is bothered at the occasional mist reaching over. Lightning strikes in the distance and low rumbles of thunder reach them afterward. It's a soothing ambiance and a relief not to feel suffocated from heat.

There's plenty to catch up on. The light-hearted stories Sasha shared with her earlier, Mikasa now shares with Levi. Some of the finer points on the drunken mishaps were told differently to Levi by a self-gratuitous Hange; it's impossible not to laugh at the discrepancies. When Levi asks her about the caravan route back, she doesn't hesitate to go into great detail. He narrows his eyes about the attempted robbery, but she assures him it was nothing, leaving out Briella's faux apology afterward.

"You really didn't go through Shiganshina?" Levi asks.

Warmed by the wine and at last being in his presence, Mikasa doesn't hesitate. "No, I didn't want to deviate, and I think by that point everyone else was anxious to get home and rest."

He nods, like he expected at much. "Hold on."

When he comes back out with a small leather-bound book, she realizes some small part of her is not surprised. There are so many things she understands far too well about him because she sees them mirrored in herself, and plenty more she doesn't understand at all. Being able to rely on Levi's steadfast routines regardless of whatever upset she may have caused feels decidedly like him, though.

Mikasa puts her glass down on the nearby side table, suddenly nervous.

Levi comes to stand before her, and as if this is no different than all of the other times, he opens the book to its centerfold. Large, ruffled tops of vibrant wine-shaded sweet pea flowers stare back at her.

Mikasa is so startled she doesn't blink, doesn't move a single muscle. These are not from her house with the Jaegers, but her home with her parents.

Levi continues to hold the book open with two hands while Mikasa stares without breathing, remembering these sweet peas and a host of other pastel-shaded flora in her old front yard. Her hands tremble, and she's too afraid she'll drop the book if she takes it. Instead, she slides over on the swinging bench, a silent invitation for Levi to sit next to her. His eyes never leave her while he slowly takes the seat, the book now open in his lap.

Another moment passes before she can shakily raise a hand toward the pages. Thinking of what she shared with him at sunrise by the river, she doesn't reach for the petals. Mikasa takes hold of Levi's hand instead, both of them now holding onto the book.

Though her hand trembles, her words are steady, sincere. "Levi... Thank you."

Levi is still as stone. She risks a glance upward; though it's subtle, she knows him too well and sees that he's not just surprised, but uncertain. Her hand hasn't calmed, but still she tightens it around his calloused fingers.

"How did you find it?" Mikasa asks, returning her gaze to the flowers but thinking of her first home.

She allows her free hand to reach for the petals. Careful not to rip their drying skin, she barely touches them.

"Unfortunately, there are several reasons the Ackerman name is famous in that district."

Though his words are spoken quietly, she still frowns, her trembling fingers trying to tighten toward a fist. As if on reflex, Levi takes his hand out from beneath hers and instead covers her trembling grip. His thumb presses into the tremors, bold and reassuring.

Instead of thinking about the scenes of blood and horror in her childhood home, she focuses on the sight of his hand protecting hers. There's a myriad of other times and various ways she's experienced this moment; a moment where she spirals far out from her center of gravity, but Levi effortlessly straightens her out and guides her back to stable ground.

When she notices her hand has relaxed beneath his touch, she looks to him again. It's the first time she openly catches him staring at the necklace; the thin chain of white gold adorned on the base of her neck, the jade pendant nestled above the dip between her breasts.

Before she can stop herself, the words tumble out. "You told me this came cheap from a pushy market-seller."

Levi looks at her, unbothered he's been caught in the lie. "And you don't believe me?"

She can tell he's being facetious, but chooses not to play, doesn't roll her eyes. "I don't."

"Hm."

She wonders if he notices his thumb is still gliding over her stilled hand, but she doesn't move an inch, afraid it will prompt him to stop.

"You needed it." Levi says this with finality, as though it's a simple fact, should have been obvious, has been obvious all along. "First time I saw you without the scarf, your hand kept flying to your neck. Rarely saw you flinch from pain on a battlefield, but that's what it was, every time your hand came up empty."

Mikasa bites her lip as she weighs whether or not to be honest with herself, and with him. With the sight of him touching her and the pressure of his palm on the top of her hand, she finds the decision is easy to make.

"Told myself that it was time to let the scarf go, time to move on." As she speaks, her free hand moves on its own, finding the habitual path to hold what is now precious stone. "Which was true, but I - I wasn't really ready, I don't think."

She can feel the weight of him looking at her instead of the jade so she faces upward. He offers the next part for her. "But the Queen's royal guard doesn't wear a scarf with their armor."

Mikasa almost smiles, her hand loosening beneath his so that her fingers can curl to reach into the base of his palm. "No, they don't. I already caused enough trouble by 'destroying tradition' and 'insulting every custom' when I refused to be branded as an MP."

He grunts, allows his hand to turn further into her touch. "Still proud of you for that."

"Can you imagine? I hate that damned unicorn, and half the incompetent fools wearing it on their back." By the end of it, she's smiling. There's nothing more cliché than eternal competition between the differing military branches.

He starts to smile too; she sees it twitch on his lips, for some reason hesitant to stay. Mikasa finishes twisting her hand, the pads of her fingers sliding fully into his palm. "I did need the necklace. I suppose I needed it for years. The only reason I took it off was to try and prove I didn't."

"To who?" He asks with a touch of scorn, suggesting she needn't prove anything to anyone.

She focuses on the feel of him massaging into her hand. "To myself."

" _Tch_."

Mikasa is wondering when they've both lowered their voices when he quietly adds, "Fair enough."

Emboldened from the ease of conversation and reciprocity of his touch, she spreads her fingers out; they fall into the opened spaces between his own. "Took me a long time, too long, to figure things out for myself."

Levi stalls for half a second. She's not sure if it's because of their conversation or that she's mirroring his movements against his skin now. Then he resumes, finding the thicker scar at the base of her pointer finger. This is the second time she can recall him tracing over it. She hopes it isn't the last.

"Historia said you resigned."

"Retired," Mikasa clarifies, noting to herself the significance in the difference.

"Retired?" He picks up on her quiet enthusiasm.

An unspoken rhythm of taking turns, their touches alternate from the tease of a skimming touch to a more deliberate massage, and Mikasa isn't sure which she prefers. She only knows she doesn't want it to stop.

"Maybe I didn't wear the patch, but I was still a soldier," she says at last.

She doesn't have to explain the rest to know that he understands. It isn't about the patch, not even the title; it was the responsibility of sacrificing one's entire self, remaining stuck behind the Walls with or without reasons to fear, and everything the Titans stole from her, everyone they lost.

"And now?" Levi looks to her, curiosity hidden behind steel slats.

His fingers stretch forward, their probing touch reaching onto her inner wrist. It sends a delighted shiver careening through her.

"Now I'm not." As she says the words, she feels the sense of liberation again; not at the end of a government contract, but the start of whatever is next.

No longer half in, half out.

Only poised for the future.

She waits for Levi to ask what she's planning to do instead, but he doesn't. She tries to collect the words to ask him what he's decided to do next, but can't.

After a moment, he looks to her, amused. "Congrats, Ackerman. I'll warn you now, Braus and Kirstein have been planning for years to throw you a surprise party."

Mikasa all but groans. "You will allow no such thing."

He smirks, gliding his thumb over the pulse on her wrist. "No promises, brat."

"Brat," she repeats with a mumble, taking her turn to slowly slide two fingers up his forearm, even slower when returning back into his palm. "Not a cadet anymore, you know."

For the first time, Levi pauses his hand, breaks their rhythm. "Trust me, I know."

The dark timbre of his hushed tone tells her precisely how he knows. Mikasa can't help the immediate blush, but he's too focused on their hands to notice. He loosens his hold entirely in favor of handing her the book. She's disappointed at the loss of contact, but reminded not to be at the sight of her mother's sweet pea flowers staring up at her.

Levi turns to the table and she gratefully realizes he's pouring them more wine with no plans to leave their shared seat. Careful as always, she closes the book to press the flowers neatly into place.

"Sari mentioned you spent a lot of time on the coastline."

Levi hands her the refilled glass. "You knew that."

"Yes, but I never really asked you about it." She bites her lip, sounds quieter than planned. "Not what you did out there, what you like about it."

Levi is silent for a long time; so long she turns in the bench to position herself facing fully toward him, careful not to let her knees knock into his thighs.

When he eventually looks over to her, she can tell he's being haunted. It's the sort of exhausting grief she's only noticed when Hange's drunken rambling accidentally stirs up his painful memories, the few times she silently accompanied him on the anniversary of Erwin's death, the days following Eren's burial when he brought meals to her bedroom, knowing she wouldn't eat them.

"How many soldiers did we lose, how many friends died, so that we could find the sea?"

Mikasa frowns, hearing what he doesn't say louder than if he had: Erwin, Eren, and Armin all died for humanity to find whatever truths and opportunity existed after Sina, Rose and Maria.

"Too many."

"Too many," he agrees.

But he's no longer morose, shrugging a shoulder as he turns to face her, too. Levi is less careful; his knee falls against her outer thigh.

"The more people I brought out to the coast, the more settlements I helped build out there, then the more I could convince myself their deaths had purpose."

It takes her breath for several seconds. Seeing her pause, Levi answers the rest of her question. Even though he's awake, it sounds like he's dreaming. "Watching the look on their faces the first time people see the ocean. That's what I like most about it."

When she exhales, her careful position loosens, her legs resting onto him. "You remember the first time we saw it?"

Like she's speaking of something sacred (and she is, isn't she?) her words are soft and whimsical.

He nods slowly, voices a suspicion he's carried for years. "You didn't believe it would be there."

"No," Mikasa admits. "No, I didn't. That was their dream, not mine."

She doesn't need to clarify who 'they' are, he knows. Levi looks at her, waiting for the point she's planned to make by bringing it up in the first place.

Mikasa wets her lips, nervous even though she's sure. "It was your dream, too."

Levi realizes he is not the only one who has carried suspicions. She's announcing it more than asking him.

Carefully, he nods. "Yes. Ever since I overheard Arlert speaking about it, before anyone of us could have known it actually existed, I hoped that it did."

Remembering Armin's unwavering (and apparently contagious) optimism almost sends her crashing downward. Yet, she sees Levi has found a purpose from that pain and she reaches for it, tries to claim it as her own.

Dreams for the future. Visions of a life without war, free from fear and bloodshed. The ocean, proof that humanity could discover more to life than cowering behind the Walls. Perhaps because all this time she was not able to let herself look forward, she missed out entirely from seeing that Levi could.

Is she able to now?

"Alright," Mikasa says, a tepid but earnest declaration. "Tell me more about it. The coastline territories. This 'people-led' government. What work you've done out there."

Levi's features animate into what can only be described as wistful. As he starts to describe the process of settlements, formation of a constitution, and the leadership role he'd accidentally inherited to help direct behind the scene developments, Mikasa asks an unprecedented amount of questions. Levi answers with an equally uncharacteristic amount of detail, and sometimes, sincere determination with genuine enthusiasm.

She listens to every single word, but at the same time, it's not the finer points and explanations that she hears. When he speaks, he breathes alive a story that is somehow so full but entirely open. It sounds like (he sounds like) the future.

Neither of them notice how much time passes until their bottle of red wine is not only finished but long forgotten.

.

.

Mikasa notes the hour is exceptionally late and the natural lull in conversation should mark the end of her visit. It's hardly necessary, but she helps him bring in their finished wine bottle and empty glasses to the kitchen sink. She didn't want to stand up from the bench and remove the weight of his legs off of her, the same as she doesn't want to leave his presence in general, but she decides that leaving now would keep it simple. And simple would be best.

Whatever complications erupted from the morning in the meadow can be avoided now if she settles for the subtle touches and a casual exit. Even with her entire frame aching to stay, and errant thoughts running rampant in hope he'll ask her to, she makes to leave like usual. Levi doesn't stop her.

With the front door open, Levi looks out to the pouring rain with a partial brow lifted. "Sure you want to go now?"

"I should," Mikasa says instead, choosing to leave the _want_ part out of it. "Mind if I keep this with you? Don't want to chance the flowers being ruined."

She holds the small book possessively between both hands. Levi nods easily, taking it with the same carefulness as earlier and setting it onto the nearby accent table.

"Thank you," she says, trying to force a grateful smile despite taking her first step across the threshold.

He simply nods. Actual words of farewell often are forfeited by the both of them so she doesn't bother to summon a worthy sentiment now.

Mikasa takes the first step out the door and focuses on the pelting of cold rain on her bare skin as she descends the few stairs from his front porch. She sees the pebble path that felt like an insurmountable distance earlier, but realizes crossing it to leave now is significantly worse. Each step feels weighted, and it has nothing to do with her clothing already being drenched.

Like the countless times before, she debates if it is her who leaves too soon or Levi who speaks too late. The familiarity of this internal confusion isn't comforting; the opposite, it feels like a knife-wound to the chest. Every step that takes her further from him is not only painful, but counter-intuitive, going against everything she feels and anything she wants— who she wants.

Did she leave too soon? Did he speak too late?

Suddenly, it doesn't actually matter which one is correct because all of it is so _wrong._ Heart pounding in her chest louder than the storm surrounding her, she abruptly turns back around.

Levi still stands outside the door's threshold as he watches her leave. She is close enough she doesn't need to shout very loud, but far enough that the sheets of rain blur her vision from clearly seeing his features. It gives her enough courage to tumble out the first words that come to mind.

"I'm afraid of shipwrecks."

His head tilts, from confusion or perhaps derision. "Shipwrecks?"

"Yes," she says, pointlessly brushing wet hair back from her face. "Ships, they're those wooden vessels that can transp—"

"Ackerman, I know what a ship is."

Mikasa glares, but her real frustration is self-directed. "Then you know that once it leaves the harbor, it could wreck."

She isn't sure when she took a few steps forward, but he's close enough now she can see the distinction of his features through the downpour of rain. Levi is simply staring, composed and calculative as ordinary; but then she sees it. The flash of understanding, like a nearby strike of lightning is reflected onto his eyes, the meaning of her declaration lit in his orbs.

"You're afraid of shipwrecks," he repeats, low enough to be thoughtful.

The frigid rain – or the consideration of making this confession – causes her to shiver, but she ignores it.

"Yes," she admits, cheek muscles contracting from whatever she is twisting and turning in her mouth, unable to say.

Contrary to popular belief, Levi does know the taste of fear. He tastes it now, metallic and sharp, almost convincing him there's blood lining his teeth and dappling onto his tongue. Levi sees her summoning the strength to make her choice, unable to discern if her grimace is because of the pelting rain or what she's about to say. At some point, he'd stepped forward, too focused on her to notice she's no longer the only one drenched from the rain.

" _Tch_." Almost inaudible. "Spit it out, brat."

Spoken as quiet and affectionately as the morning she woke with him to sunrise by the river. Mikasa draws strength from movement and takes a few more steps closer to him.

"I'm afraid of shipwrecks," she repeats warily, but that is only half of her confession.

She stands at the bottom of his front door steps, looking up at him, unbothered as the rain splashes onto her pained features. Watching her take a deep breath makes him halt his own. 

"But that doesn't mean I don't want to go out to sea," Mikasa says, biting her lip hard and then releasing it with a sigh. "To see, and know, whatever it is that could happen if I was brave enough to go."

Levi doesn't realize he's had a white-knuckled grip anchoring him to the stair railing until he releases it. He knows her grief almost as well as his own, has sat with her sobbing, wrenching frame, seen her both listless and furiously vengeful; but this is an entirely different sort of desperation. Belatedly, he recognizes it's not grief over what was taken from her, but what she might not be able to take for herself.

"Didn't take you for a ro–" _romantic_ , she hears what he means to say even as he quickly redirects himself. Mikasa doesn't know about the imaginary set of scales, but she has experienced his conservative choices over the years and senses the same caution now.

"… a poet," Levi finishes instead.

Her lips quiver, all together ignoring his self-correction.

"Yes, you did," she says easily, abruptly unashamed.

She starts to take the first stair up to him, but pauses at the enormity of her own thoughts. Boldness she ordinarily reserves for the battlefield causes her to look up at him, waiting until their storming gray orbs collide into fierce contact. Static from the electricity in the air pulses between them.

"You know more than anyone how ridiculous I can get when I love someone too much."

He's a soldier in unknown territory, only processing her words, securing evidence for her statement as he recalls the first time he yanked her back from chasing Eren into certain death, how she almost killed him to save Armin's life, and now, she's—

Then Mikasa watches him understand, the subtle slackening of his jaw and fast snap of his head when his entire attention focuses fully on her, the present, and this casual admission.

_Love._

A silent moment passes between them as the storm worsens around them. The step she'd started to take up the first stair retreats until both her feet are planted onto the ground, though it does nothing to steady her.

"Foolish, too," she adds belatedly, nervous again, peering past his shoulder instead of into his face.

An apology, for giving into fear the morning of the meadow, for running away after her realization in the tent.

Levi steps forward, and though his eyes are the shaded hues of the storm around them, she sees only calm waters within them.

"I've seen those shit holes they call 'ships', and I have no intention of stepping foot on any of their feeble planks or shoddy boar—"

"I wasn't being literal," Mikasa stammers. "I mean, I wan—"

But he's descended the last two steps to reach her and strong, familiar hands take hold of her rain-soaked face. Mikasa immediately leans into his touch, wide-eyed at seeing him so close that even the rain can't blur the vision of his features. Her memories of how he appeared the morning in the meadow don't compare to reality; she sees the same look about him now. Sharp and transparent, desperate but certain.

"I know what you mean, brat," he breathes over her lips, scarred fingers of one hand wrapping firmly around the curve of her neck. The other hand uses the excuse of removing rain to trail over her left cheekbone.

She almost falls apart right then and there in blessed relief, but it immediately transforms into the exquisite thrill of anticipation. Instead, Mikasa stands straighter, admiring the tangles of droplets in Levi's dark lashes and how the stability of solid ground she'd been searching for is finally found once placing both hands onto his chest.

Her whisper is a demand, but it sounds like a promise. "This time, kiss me and don't stop."

Her words are all but interrupted when Levi finally claims her lips, tilting her head back at once to deepen the kiss from the start. Mikasa doesn't hesitate, pulling herself into him as she tastes the rainwater collected on his lips. He holds her so possessively, kisses her with such reverence, her knees start to wobble.

She has a half-formed thought to regret the last time she prevented this, but Levi is all-consuming, evaporating even the relevant thoughts amidst his intensity. There is suddenly no more fear and regret from the past; tethered to Levi, there is only the promises and possibilities of the future.

Unlike last time, it's not a competition against the other, but with each other. Mikasa pushes one hand up to feel the pulse in his neck, noticing it skip beneath her touch when it's her turn to tend to his lower lip. Levi presses his thumb firmly down the bone structure of her jaw, but softens his touch to part her lips, patient before his tongue traces the length of plump skin.

Mikasa's other hand cards through his drenched hair, lifting her chin to let his tongue slide further in. She's determined to target every droplet of rain and remnants of red wine left until it's only _Levi_ she tastes again.

Even with their eyes closed, the lightning strikes so close that iridescent colors of neon violet and blinding white flash beneath their lids. An immediate clap of violent thunder affirms the storm is nearing, but they don't break apart.

Both of Levi's hands move downward; first, caressing her cheeks and neck, then dragging across her sides until he reaches the soaked fabric against her hips. He abruptly lifts her and steps back; Mikasa reads his mind or feels his movements, twisting her arms behind his neck so he can carry them backwards.

His firm grip on her waist spirals heat below her abdomen. Levi starts to let go of her and turn to open the door, but she pulls her arms back just enough to plant two hands on his shoulders. She slams him into the door instead, keeping their lips locked together.

As if she hadn't interfered and it was the plan all along, Levi pulls her hips into him and slides his hands underneath her soaked camisole, claiming warm skin and keeping them flush against each other. Mikasa's next kiss falters upon feeling his arousal pressing firmly through thin, wet clothes. Levi uses the chance to draw a gasp out of her, skimming teeth over her trembling lip.

Another strike of lightning simultaneously accompanied by a roar of impossibly loud thunder causes Mikasa to startle enough that her head rolls back. Her lids flutter open in just enough time to see a three-pronged streak of vivid lightning dart through the blackened clouds. Her neck now exposed, Levi presses a firm kiss beneath her chin and she expects another; instead, distracted at the rainwater on her skin, his tongue sweeps powerfully down the length of her neck.

Unsure if it's the electricity from the storm or the sensation from his tongue, Mikasa's hips jerk against him. Her hold on him borders on desperate as she starts to align her waistline to feel him hard between her thighs. Levi feels her adjusting; teeth nipping and then sucking over her pulse point, he lets one hand slip down her backside to the base of her thigh. He pushes her one leg up and over his hip, centering her onto the pressure of his erection.

Mikasa gasps, Levi hisses: the heat, friction, tension of _not quite enough_ relief. At the same time, their lips collide together again.

She drops her hands from his shoulders to get both of them under his shirt; it takes a few pulls and tugs to release the fabric from his belted pants before she can drag them up his hot skin. Levi keeps his hold on her thigh as he spins them, pushing her back into the wall of the front door to gain better leverage. As soon as he has it, his free hand graces up beneath her camisole to rest tightly against her ribs. She feels his thumb explore precisely underneath the base of her breast and tries not to (fails not to) moan through her next kiss.

In response, his next kiss is so deliberately _thorough_ she's startled into a sense of urgency and newfound freedom: the fear of a shipwreck is obliterated from her consciousness.

"Levi," she says suddenly, breathless against the corner of his mouth.

His nose slides against hers as he looks up, searching her face to understand the desperate plea.

Mikasa pauses for half a second, not with uncertainty but _absolute_ certainty upon seeing him so close, so heated. "Take me with you."

Levi tenses, but doesn't loosen his grip. He's spent too much time preparing for the reality that she may not want to leave her post behind the Walls; he doesn't know how to hear the words even as she expresses interest in going beyond them.

His gaze is searing, like he's preparing to lecture her. "To where?"

"Wherever you're going." As though it's simple, obvious.

When Levi only continues to stare, she digs her fingers further into dense muscles of his back.

"You want to leave Mitras, don't you?" Mikasa asks, even though she is certain. "You're thinking of selling this house to Connie, you aren't working with Luka and Briella anymore – you're leaving."

The rain is flooding down so hard now she's forced to raise her voice. "So, take me with you."

Impressed that she's pieced together a few things, but he refuses to admit it. Reluctant, Levi loosens his grip on her thigh and slowly brings her leg back to the ground. "You don't know where, or for what, or when."

"It doesn't matter." Like it's a difference between black or oolong tea, she means it.

"It doesn't matter." It's meant to be a question, but it comes out scornful, the disparaging words of an old captain.

The pause in their frenetic movements, new onslaught of heavier rain, the dangerous strikes of nearby lightning— it finally prompts Levi to fully release Mikasa and for her to actually let him. Together they stumble inside, water splashing across the threshold and coming down in rivulets from their clothing.

"No, it doesn't matter," Mikasa says again, unwilling ( _unable_ , Walls knows he's tried) to be reprimanded. "You said you wanted me to figure out what I want to do."

Now he stares at her, hard and unrelenting as steel, but waiting— the smoldering of hope unable to be completely hidden. Mikasa uses both hands to push water-logged hair back behind her ears; she's gravely serious yet somehow starting to smile. Bucking his authority and doing whatever he least expects always did come the most naturally to her.

"Well I've thought about it— it's all I can think about. But the only thing I know with certainty is that I want you to kiss me. I want _this_."

She says _this_ with lavender-dusted eyes that flicker between the two of them, as if just by looks alone she can tether them together again. 

Levi remains tense, and while he's often unreadable, she sees the catalog of recent memories and their implications reeling through his mind.

"Not sure that's what I meant," he says, chiding.

She glares at him, determined to see the entire marble facade crumble to reveal who he is underneath it. "Yes, it is."

Because it isn't about the kiss; it is about whether or not she wants him, _them_ — if she is ready for there to be a _them_. For a moment it's silent between them again, with only the sound of the raging storm outside and the soft patter of water as it drips onto the hardwood floor inside.

Mikasa remains serious. "I'm not entirely sure what I want to do next, maybe I'll always be too- too damaged to know how to think further than one day ahead. All I know is whatever I do, whatever days do come next, I need them to be with you."

The marble finally cracks, then crumbles. The sincere intent behind her words breaks through his diligently constructed caution, the last line of Levi's defenses. Surprise, then relief, and then a resurgence of their earlier fervor flash in a torrent of comprehension on his features.

Levi takes the three steps required to approach her with slow pursuit, and she bites her lip, her mouth contemplating if it's too soon to smile. Once he stands directly in front of her, both of his hands first placed at her elbows and then massaging warmth back into her upper arms, she collapses into him. Her forehead presses beneath his collarbone and onto his chest, trusting it is safe to smile as she wraps her arms around him.

He is still thoughtful as he returns her embrace, breathing her in— rainwater, muted fragrances of jasmine and vetiver, and the subtle tang of a light sweat he's known as hers for over a decade.

Now that they've stopped moving, he can feel the goosebumps on her skin and shivers she's suppressing. Tucking her into his chest, Levi keeps both arms wrapped firmly around her lower back and listens to her quiet sigh of contentment. His lips find her temple, but his busied thoughts distract him from kissing her.

Mikasa rests in a peace she never dreamed existed. Passionate, heated touching stuck the match to light her soul on fire; but being comforted by the steadfast warmth of Levi's hold _is_ the fire.

"The coast," he says finally, warm lips pressing into her wet skin and tangled hair as he kisses her temple. "Move to the coast with me."

She doesn't let herself think of old memories spent on the coastline during the war. She decides to wait to think of the sea again until she's there and able to make new ones.

"Okay," she says, unwinding herself out of his arms and taking half a step backward.

Levi studies her, but understanding comes soon after as she gradually lifts her arms. He finds the hem of her soaked camisole at once, but doesn't move any faster than she does. His eyes take their time too, admiring pale skin resembling porcelain only in color (she is anything but breakable), the faint outline of her rib cage, and the darkened slate blue eyelet lace he'd felt the edges of earlier. With his fingers grazing over the soft skin of her arms, together they finish removing the top and it falls to the floor.

A different sort of studying now, Levi brazenly admires the creamy ivory skin of her breasts swelling over the laced bra. The necklace he gifted her hosting the jade stone rests between the curve of her cleavage, surrounded by remaining droplets of rain.

Levi retakes the half step toward her again, both hands wrapping around her waist and sliding upward. She's torn between melting further into his touch and holding her breath, but somehow manages both when his hands cup her breasts. His thumbs glide along the wet lace, and she feels a strangely primitive need to be owned by him. _These are yours. I am yours._

"Okay?" Levi repeats, dipping down to meet the crook of her neck.

His tongue sets out to collect each remaining droplet of rain, from the base of her clavicle, to the center of her chest, to the swell of her breasts.

"Okay," she says, trembling lips smiling as she reaches to unbuckle his belt. "Okay, I'm going to the coast with you."

It's impossible to know if the throaty noise of his grunted approval is because of her words or her deliberate palming over his arousal.

Levi's tongue swirls to the last collection of drops on the curve of her left breast. He cradles her tighter, both thumbs trekking back and forth over the damp fabric atop her now pert nipples. She bites down, but the vibrating pulse between her thighs only thrums harder. One hand busily, greedily outlining the length of him, her other hand finishes unwinding Levi's belt. It clatters to the floor.

As soon as Mikasa's deft fingers undo the button and zipper to his pants, Levi is stepping out of them while guiding her to the closest sofa in the nearby living room. Mikasa starts on the bottom buttons of Levi's dress shirt to avoid halting the revelry he works over her lips, neck and breasts, but they're interrupted upon reaching the sofa. Swift and strong, he turns them, dropping his hold onto her hips and pulling her into his lap as he sinks back into the furniture. Mikasa's knees drop into the cushions to straddle him, finding him iron-hard and hot between her thighs. An escaped moan flutters out of her lips immediately upon contact.

The rest of their top buttons and clasps are slowly undone, neither of them consciously aware they both need to rewrite the story of their first intimate encounter. Not thrashing and violent from a challenge, but deliberate and slow: enough time between one touch to the next to be grateful for the taste of every new kiss, how each flicker of tongue feels on vulnerable skin. It's a hungry, thorough exploration of the places they'd been too rushed to appreciate the first time.

Mikasa murmurs something incoherent from bliss, Levi mumbles a prompt for clarification into his next puncturing kiss on her neck, neither of them wait for a response.

When they both have bare-skinned chests pressed against one another, there's no longer an excuse to collect rain droplets but Levi's tongue takes diligent turns capturing each nipple with the same intent. Thoughtless in seeking relief, _more_ — _more friction_ , Mikasa rocks back and forth with her hips, sinking further into him each time. Her lace undergarments are soaked and it is not from standing in the rain.

Mikasa explores Levi's bare back with more focus and intent than even before, tracing the ridges of sculpted muscle and brushing over old scars. There's only a few of them, and she's almost certain half of them are from sparring with her. He feels _too good_ and it is _too much_ ; she drops her head down hurriedly, his name sung through a gasp when he tweaks the other nipple not currently being treasured under his teasing tongue.

He feels her chin on his neck and looks up, not needing to find her lips when she immediately claims his first, teeth sinking into his bottom lip until he groans. Levi drops his hands at once to her straddling legs, gathering the ends of her skirt and sliding it up to her waist.

"Levi," she starts, nursing his swollen lip she'd just bitten.

He's massaging her thighs with such strength it should be painful, but she's too strong, too _wanting_ of him to sink his touch into every inch of her. Past skin, through muscle, to her bones and into her soul.

"Mikasa," he answers gravelly, too heady to be coherent. His rough hands (fuck, she loves those hands) skim down her backside and start to slide under the lace, caressing over the softer skin.

"Since when?" she asks between breaths, her lips dragging over his jaw to kiss beneath his ear. _When did you start to notice me?_

She teases her tongue against his earlobe; when it prompts a guttural rumble out of him, she sucks harder onto the lobe to hear him again. It works, and she grins briefly, then moves onto the stretch of skin along his jawbone.

Even heated, he knows exactly what she's asking him. With his cock throbbing against her— wet, and warm and pulsing— it doesn't even occur to him to think of balancing scales. Levi just answers her question.

"When you wouldn't kill me," he says, placing gentle, open-mouthed kisses into the hollows of her neck. "When we first made it to the sea, and you forced me to go in."

Mikasa pauses, tilting her neck back down. "You didn't think you deserved to enjoy it— but you did. You do."

As though it was yesterday, he can see her penetrating gaze all but drilling into him as they stood on the shoreline, wildfire colors of sunset swallowing the giant star into the sea. After the others had left and he still remained cemented onto dry land, she stayed with him until he finally took off his boots, until she saw him walk barefoot into the sinking sand, until for the first time Levi felt the waves lapping over his ankles.

Then, she stayed until he understood that he'd made the right decision. Until he understood how all of his tragedies and every difficult choice directly correlated with finding the ocean, with proving there was hope for humanity. Only then did Mikasa wordlessly leave him alone to fully embrace the sea's salvation.

Levi's grip on her ass tightens, but he pulls back enough to fully look at her. He doesn't have to ask her the same question aloud for her to understand, but he starts to. "When?"

Mikasa has had plenty of time to consider it, so the answer comes swift. "In the forest, chasing after the Female Titan. When you injured your leg."

Levi blinks. "When _you_ injured my leg."

She starts to laugh, but he's startlingly serious, hands dropping down to her thighs. "You hated me back then."

Both her brows lift. "Sometimes."

Levi leans back onto the sofa. "I don't think you understood the question."

She purses her lips to prevent from laughing at his indignation. "I understood it perfectly fine, _Captain_."

But then Mikasa is serious. "You think I hated you for beating the shit out of Eren or almost killing Armin, how much more do you think I loved you for all the times you saved them?"

He looks at her, considering her words in each and every layer of his mind. _Loved._

Levi doesn't realize he's tracing circles and runes into the sides of her thighs until she shivers from his gentle touch. It snaps him back to the moment.

"In the forest then," he repeats, taking a careful hold beneath her hip bones.

She smiles meekly, unused to sharing from the far corners of her mind let alone the depths of her heart. It wasn't about saving Eren; it was about saving her.

"I've spent most of my life scrambling for any semblance of security, or stability," she says quietly, hands nervous and restless against the top of his chest. "Being with you is the only way I've ever known what it means to feel safe."

She might as well have struck him. His eyes widen and his grip tightens, fingers digging further into her soft skin beneath her pelvic bones. It's not simply her earnest admission, but the striking similarity to what could be his own spoken sentiment.

"Mikasa." He says her name in a breath that sounds more like a prayer.

When she looks down to him, her arms draped loosely behind his neck and honest eyes appraising him, he kisses her once— slowly, so slow she's not sure it will ever end.

Levi lifts his lips from hers, but doesn't move any further off. Their eyes meet— a thousand thoughts and endless emotions tearing through them, and Levi starts to say it, to share even a sliver of what she's shared.

_Loved._

_Love._

The words he's planning to say sound cheap in his mind, a random collection of syllables that can't convey his boundless dedication. They don't convince him, so how can it be enough to convince her?

Mikasa shifts enough to turn her head over toward the front room, lavender speckles glittering like jewels in her gray eyes as she confidently looks toward the accent table by the front door. She focuses on the small, leather-bound book with the wine-shaded sweet pea flowers from her mother's garden. When she turns back to him, it's with an understanding smile.

"I know," she whispers, already convinced.

.

.


	5. Tectonic Shift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I'm so grateful for you all. I'm learning so much about writing, editing, and story management. Thank you for your patience, honest feedback, and encouragement. Your critiques are always welcome and sincerely helpful (for this story and others). 
> 
> Some more creative liberties taken here, but only slight variations from canonverse.
> 
> Oh yeah, don't trust a word I say, there will be another chapter. In my outline, the content in this chap was supposed to be a few paragraphs to preface a brief time-skip. Instead it became these 15k words of collected moments? _Oops_ (:
> 
> I don't like notes at the end, so: credit to John Milton for the book excerpt included in this chap. Alternative title was "authorial affliction." 
> 
> Happy holidays, and Happy New Year, friends. I know 2020 was a shit-show for many. I hope your 2021 is far better. xo 
> 
> With love,  
> Helena

**Beyond the Walls**

_Chapter 5: Tectonic Shift_

* * *

Bold touches and tight grips. The last of the rainwater evaporates off of their heated skin. Redistribution of weight— creaks on the wooden floorboard and strain of sofa springs. Perspiration forms beneath roaming hands. Bumping of limbs and necessary readjustments, bodies not used to being so close— this _connected._

Outside’s raging storm quiets from dissipation. The silence echoes in the house even louder than the earlier thunder, interrupted only by rapid breaths and the fulfillment of a promise. _This time, kiss me and don’t stop._

.

.

She is not sure if Levi holds her onto his lap or if she straddles him to pin them down. The difference seems to matter for a moment—is she seeking or is she sought after— and then it doesn’t. She can’t breathe, doesn’t want to breathe, under the poetic prose of his languid lips and sweeping tongue. The complex ratios of _giving_ and _taking_ become irrelevant.

Mikasa wants more than he can give. Then Levi gives more than she can take.

.

.

The need for more of him courses through her, rogue waves racing for the shoreline. Levi cradles one hand onto the side of her face to anchor her, holding her lips in place for the both of them.

In an ordinary context, Mikasa Ackerman is either inexplicably in control or recklessly abandoning it. There is no in-between then, and there is no in-between now.

Every split second Levi releases her lips only to reclaim them again feels like an affront. She tries to kiss him harder, both her lips pressing together to trap his bottom one with a tug, and she tries to kiss him longer, her tongue as valiant as his own. A private match to dominate the other’s mouth, but neither of them know how to lose or forfeit. 

His other hand— calloused but careful, firm but undemanding— slides beneath her soaked skirt. Levi digs into the soft skin of her outer thigh. 

_More, more._ Her entire body thrums with the demand of it.

She can’t breathe. Mikasa’s lungs inevitably betray her. With a whinnied gasp, she reluctantly wrenches her mouth free. Despite his own labored breathing, Levi manages a sufficiently satisfied smirk. The jolt it sends straight past her navel has nothing to do with touch.

Her forehead falls into the crook of his neck and a flash of impulse directs her to bite. His breath hitches— it jerks her lips into a half-formed grin. Mikasa bites down harder.

Levi drags his anchoring hold from her cheek down to the slopes of her neck. He first thumbs the tendons at the base of her throat. She plans to look at him, but it’s too late. His hand wraps fully around— Levi uses his grip to direct her to look down.

Between _this_ hold and _that_ look in his eyes, she learns what it means to surrender.

“Tell me,” Levi says, even and low— _taunting_.

Mikasa is almost too distracted by the teasing pressure on her throat to notice that his other hand leaves the outside of her thigh in favor of massaging into the inside of it.

Almost.

When he releases her throat, she misses the hold at once— almost dips forward to place herself into it again. But then his thumb slides up past her chin and onto her bottom lip. Levi is deliberate—and distracting. He parts her mouth slowly— traces over her opened lips, then dips in to swipe over the tip of her tongue.

Wide-eyed and wanting, she waits for the rest of his demand. _Tell me._

Like he was waiting to secure her eye-contact first, he looks as lethal as he sounds. “This time, am I allowed to make you come first?”

She blinks once, then twice. He’s phrased it like a question, but it’s the first time in years that he gives her a command. 

It’s hardly a fair prompt—he’s already slid his index finger and thumb into position. Surging seas continue to pulse ( _more, more)._

With the very last of her cognitive abilities intact, Mikasa appraises him.

Levi waits with a confidence so striking it is nearly cruel. Both of her lips, north and south, are held in the grasp of his scarred and sacred fingertips.

She cards one hand through his hair, and settles the other onto the nape of his neck—prepares to hold on.

Her answer comes out with her next breath— _“Yes.”_

.

.

Golden hues erupt like sunbursts from the pupils of Levi’s gray eyes. She’s never noticed that before. 

It isn’t from lack of proximity. They’ve been only inches apart on plenty of other occasions; training drills, mishaps in combat, spontaneous altercations, and even their last few illicit encounters. But Mikasa realizes now she has never actually let herself _look_ — not this close, not like this.

Curled onto Levi’s lap with her arms resting in a loop around his neck, coming back to shore after the tidal waves of an orgasm, she looks down and actually sees him.

Levi’s steel-gray orbs are not purely the color of metal. 

The gold encircling his pupils stretches out to the rings of his irises, a deep and rich blue. She can almost remember the sea enough to be certain it’s the same hue. Blended in-between are dimensions of stone quarry gray and subtle muted greens, reminiscent of the pale jade gemstone settled between her breasts. 

Then there’s the _way_ he’s looking up at her— intent, unblinking. She knows this about Levi, how he’s often cold or aloof but can promptly snap into full focus and a fatal determination. But he ordinarily reserves that level of focus for the battlefield. She’s never been the object of his rapt attention before.

Mikasa becomes keenly aware that she is an exception. The exception.

No, his gray eyes aren’t like steel or storms, but precious stones. 

.

.

Though deserving of the popular title _Humanity’s Strongest,_ they make love slowly the first time, as if each of them doesn’t want the other one to break.

.

.

After that, they fuck so hard it’s as if _breaking_ is precisely their intention.

.

.

.

He doesn’t know it, but her dreamscape is full of light and rounded by soft edges. If coherent, she might have described the thrumming in her mind as gentle winds or floating notes from a bamboo flute. But her subconscious doesn’t need a metaphor: peace permeates throughout her soundless sleep.

Levi sits with relaxed shoulders and his back settled against the headboard. Though he is awake and fully alert, he rests in a peace no less tangible. After sliding up into a seated position, Mikasa’s sleeping frame simply readjusted herself. Previously lying on his chest, now onto the top of his thigh with one arm tucked between her chest and his leg, and the other resting across his lap.

There’s no fluttering beneath her lids to indicate nightmarish views. Only wrinkles of subtle expression on the lines of her features; not hard as stone, but honest and human. He watches her breathe for a moment, the steady exchange of unhurried air coming in and out as it lifts the curve of her bare breasts in a consistent rhythm.

It is impossible to consider that he might actually wake up to this sight more than once. 

With his one hand wrapped securely around her forearm resting over his legs, he uses the other to settle into the tangles of her midnight black hair. Soft and loose strands, but knotted from the storm’s downpour and his own fingers that carelessly pushed through it.

The stamina and skill carried through an Ackerman’s bloodline proved beneficial in ways he hasn’t dwelt on since his adolescent years. Lust and adrenaline could give anyone the desire to keep pursuing, but their so-called shared _potential_ enabled almost endless pursuits. His best guess is they both fell asleep for first time near dawn, but then one of them would wake up the other— thoughtless touches becoming the spark of tinder on still smoldering flames.

Remembering the series of events is a whirlwind of sequences shifting so fast his mind can’t track a single memory from beginning to end. Outside in the storm. Discarded clothes from the sofa. Slower the first time, too focused on looking at each other. Carrying her from his lap to the bedroom: fucking again, breathless again. Above her, slamming in hard. Below her, stroking then _sucking._

Then, the rewards of indulging her last remnants of shyness: unfiltered demands and unhindered moans. Every noise she made was like a sacred offering— ragged breaths, sharp cries, and the use of his first name more times than he could count. In an unprompted but more than welcome soundtrack, the audio of her pleasure runs on loop in the back of his mind.

It’s not just the incoherent pleas.

_“All I know is whatever I do, whatever days do come next, I need them to be with you."_

Levi glances to the nearby clock— quarter after four in the afternoon— then resumes looking down at Mikasa. He releases a strand of dark hair he put behind her ear a moment before.

_“The coast. Move to the coast with me.”_

_“Okay.”_

_“Okay?”_

_“Okay. Okay, I'm going to the coast with you.”_

This won’t be the last time he wakes up with a sight like this one.

.

.

Mikasa shifts. The arm tucked between them tries to turn, but it has no room. Her lips part as if she plans to mumble a protest, but just as soon close again. Her chin lifts some, knocking the crown of her head into his hip, but she remains settled, her cheek pressed firmly against the middle of his boxer-clad thighs. All signs to suggest she’s starting to wake.

Levi acknowledges every movement, waiting for the inevitable pull of terror that will infiltrate her half-conscious state and wake her fully. He should stop the idle runes he’s been drawing into her scalp to avoid waking her, but Levi selfishly shelves that thought when he can’t get himself to stop.

Only another moment passes before she starts to turn, a near silent murmuring as she surfaces into consciousness. Did he miss the signs of a nightmare?

Mikasa’s arm rested over his lap begins to lift, but pauses immediately upon recognition of the weight from his touch. Her body remembers where she is; rather, who is with her.

She drops her arm back down. Her lids flutter open as she tightens her arm around him. Blinking ahead at the sight of his lap, she doesn’t notice Levi looking at her but focuses only on the feel of his soothing touch. Mikasa’s lids helplessly close again.

“You still don’t sleep well.” Her words are soft, subtle from muted sadness.

“I slept well,” he contradicts, deepening the pressure of his touch now that she’s awake— massaging symbols of an unknown language into the nape of her neck. “Just never sleep for long.”

It’s not a lie. He probably slept better than he had in years, actually; no nightmares, and no panicked thoughts to interrupt him in two hour increments. His best guess is he enjoyed an unprecedented five hours of uninterrupted sleep. The pragmatic part of himself tells him physical exhaustion was responsible, given the content of their activities throughout long hours of the night and half the morning. The other part of him considers it might be from different reasons entirely.

Mikasa maneuvers her other arm out from its trapped place and stretches it down, but her heavy-lidded eyes remain closed. She sighs aloud, content in a manner he’s not even sure he’s actually heard from her.

“If you keep doing this, I’m going to fall asleep again,” Mikasa murmurs, trying pointlessly to reciprocate the touch, her tired fingers lazily running up and down his outer thigh.

Levi doesn’t answer, but becomes more deliberate, tracing loose wisps of fine hair carefully at her temple. In another moment, her own hand stills until it falls against him, and she’s sleeping again.

He has a dull ache behind his brows, a reminder that it’s far past his usual time for caffeine. The need to get up and use the bathroom. A parched throat desperate for overdue glasses of chilled water. 

Levi stays right where he is.

.

.

.

It was Armin who first explained it to her. The process of a fat, crawling caterpillar that emerges from chrysalis into the free-spirited butterfly with bright colored wings.

 _You sure that’s the same creature?_ Eren challenged, though he knew Armin was always right.

 _Yes, I’m sure,_ and Armin grinned. _It’s called metamorphosis._

Mikasa had been too busy admiring the vibrant cyan hues and fluttering of capable wings to hear the rest of Armin’s detailed explanation.

Metamorphosis. Mikasa tilts her head up to let the scalding hot water rinse the last of sex and soap from her skin. That’s what it feels like, she thinks. Leaving the comfortable but stunted space of a cocoon after one thought that’s all there was to it, that’s all life would ever be. Emerging from it instead— lighter and buoyant, now hosting wings and nothing but an open sky before it.

An open sky before her.

She’s reluctant to leave the shower, if only to remain still in the rare moment of serenity, or perhaps to solidify the signifance of the moment. It’s unfamiliar; looking forward to an upcoming event, _wanting_ what’s next. Wondering, too.

There’s an ethereal sort of joy in the sensation that comes with wonder. Her mind pulses between so many different thoughts and possibilities. She’s reminded again of the butterfly from that day, how it flitted between flora and fauna without settling on a place to land. Too excited to remain at a standstill, it continued to fly onward.

Eventually, it flew too far and away from her view.

Mikasa eventually turns off the water and exits the shower. Steam fills the room and fogs the mirror, but she’s not worried about her reflection. It’s the neat pile of clean clothes, perfectly folded towels, and precise arrangement of miscellaneous toiletries situated into two orderly lines that captures her attention.

As a Scout, she found great satisfaction in following after him to mess up his piles and undo whatever tidying he’d just done. Now she traces her fingertips over the pristine edges and careful symmetry, humbled by a deeper understanding for his obsession with order and compulsive need to control.

After running a towel through her hair, Mikasa picks up the clothes: a simple set of sleepwear in mint and gray, a soft cotton shirt and thick-striped shorts. There is something about them that is unmistakably familiar.

She steps into them and is somehow unsurprised to find that they are a perfect fit. Mikasa suddenly remembers them with clarity— they’re hers. At least, they once belonged to her.

The pajamas were part of a birthday gift from Sasha. Not a gift from recent years— in the resurfaced memory, Mikasa can clearly visualize his distant green eyes and newly donned bun. Eren was seated on the opposite side of the room when she ripped off the wrapping paper.

Memories of wearing the pajamas in Levi’s home elude her, though. There isn’t much about the first year after Eren passed that she can remember besides pitiful attempts to comfort Armin, an abundance of alcohol, and almost all of her days spent under the covers of a bed. The location and owner of the bed were irrelevant. She knows Levi was there for most of it, that Hange tripled their drinking limits, Sasha was at a loss for how to help, and the others were shadows of their former selves. He was the only one of them who carried on.

Try as she does though, she can’t remember details. It’s a space in time she’s done her best to avoid and _bury_ over the years. The grief after wartime was infinitely harder than the grief during it. After Armin passed, she moved to Mitras and wandered aimlessly before Historia approached her. She knows a few cold nights were spent asleep outside, but not all of them.

Had it been days, weeks or months? During how many of those was she another one of Levi’s ghosts? Corporeal, but haunting him and his home.

Mikasa starts to wrench the pajama shorts back off of her— wants nothing to do with _that_ time and the version of herself who lived during it. But the effort to unearth buried memories leads to an attempt to fabricate realistic ones. For the first time, she almost wishes she had paid more attention then— paid attention to him. She was never the only one who had suffered loss. 

She pauses for a full moment before accepting the pajamas— accepting her past— accepting herself. Acceptance has never been easy for her to find.

If she plans to replace wartime memories on the coast with new ones by the sea, she will have to learn how to rewrite ones that are simpler. Like wearing old, half-forgotten pajamas.

Mikasa lets go of the waistband. She needlessly brushes invisible wrinkles from her shirt — Levi apparently had it ironed— and promptly finishes her routine. Then she goes to search for him.

There’s already a quiet commotion coming from the kitchen— the whistling of a tea kettle, simmering of oil on a pan, and the sharp chop of a knife. Mikasa reaches the end of the hall, but pauses before stepping fully into the kitchen.

There are two empty teacups waiting on the granite counter by the boiling kettle. And next to them— two plates, two cloth napkins, and two sets of silverware. Perhaps a bit domestic, but an otherwise normal sight. It shouldn’t have been enough to halt her mid-step. 

Except normal and domestic have always been off the table for her.

Mikasa turns her gaze to watch Levi as he prepares the meal. It’s not the first time she’s seen him cook or complete a mundane task. He has the same steadied focus, methodical movements, and compulsions to clean as he goes, one towel neatly folded and draped over his shoulder— that’s _all_ Levi. But the rest is new, different.

Half of his hair hasn’t yet dried, wet strands tucked behind an ear on one side. He’s barefoot and shirtless, wearing only comfortable linen pants. She bites her tongue to withhold a grin— the evidence of time well spent together is carved roughly into his sculpted back. Her nails have left lines of vivid red marks. Impossible to be certain, but she swears his ordinarily rigid posture is more relaxed. Shoulders loosened, the arm positioned over the stove almost slack. Like he’s comfortable, and content.

Mikasa stops biting her tongue, the soft smile inevitably making its way onto her lips. She takes the remaining steps left to enter the kitchen, knowing this time he’ll hear her.

Levi turns with a spatula lifted lazily and lips parted, undoubtedly some smart remark prepared. The words don’t make it out, though. For a moment he stares. At first she isn’t sure what’s caught him off-guard, but she just as soon recognizes it’s the same thing that had her transfixed. She’s fresh out of the shower with soaked hair and pajamas, swollen lips and soft bruises: she’s also a new version of herself.

She lifts a brow, unable to help herself from hiding the smug acknowledgement of his surprise.

Levi blinks, removing himself from the trance, and she sees the ghost of his smile before he turns back toward the stove. There appears to be one pot of simmering rice, but the rest is still in the earlier stages. Untouched onion, garlic and tomato lay in wait, and a separate cutting board hosts raw poultry breasts stacked onto the left corner.

His smart remark must have only been delayed, not entirely forfeited. “Not sure that this will compare to the grime of the Underground you’re so fond of eating every night.”

It’s meant with levity, but it abruptly takes her breath. Every night?

Leaving her suite in the castle for the Underground’s subpar dining establishments and bland food _has_ been a daily habit. With the exception of time spent accompanying the caravan, working at royal banquets, or the occasional dinners with old comrades, it has been her evening routine since… since she had people to cook for and eat with— since Eren and Armin were alive.

The epiphany lances through her. She can’t even remember the last time she made dinner for herself. 

“I can’t stand cooking for just one. To eat alone.”

Mikasa chews her bottom lip. She’s certain that she is more surprised than him at the accidental honesty in her admission. 

Levi straightens. Watching his shoulders turn upright, how the muscles in back pull taut, confirms her earlier theory that he was uncharacteristically relaxed. Not anymore— Levi turns toward her, an unreadable expression on his stern features. He studies her for a moment, perhaps waiting for the shoe to drop; but then he snaps back to attention, turning toward the items and ingredients on the counter. Levi picks up the butcher knife and turns again.

He points it toward her, watches her lashes flutter in recognition, then deftly twists the knife and tosses it over to her.

She reaches out, easily snatching it by the handle.

“Well, come on then,” Levi says, sliding the cutting board with poultry over to his side and gesturing for her to take over. “Get to work.”

Mikasa bites down harder, an attempt not to smile wider, and she walks over to stand beside him. She slices the poultry into thin strips while Levi starts to chop and sauté the vegetables. 

Together they prepare the meal.

Together they eat dinner.

Mikasa is fast becoming fond of what can be done _together._

.

.

She already needs another shower. Coated in sweat and tangled into Levi’s sheets, she tries to catch her breath, thinks it might be necessary to stop and reach for the nearby glass of water. Mikasa can’t— doesn’t want to _(what’s the difference at this point_?)— move, though. He hovers over her abdomen, one hand stretched upward and wrapped tight around her throat, the other kneading into the crook beneath her bent knee and onward to the apex of her thigh.

It’s his lips that have cemented her into place, though.

Determined to taste every inch of her. He’d said something in that vein earlier, a hoarse whisper into the shell of her ear. But that was before he’d come, when both of them were reeling in the thralls of lust and precipice of climax.

Apparently, it wasn’t just flippant words from a wild moment. It was a promise he intended to keep.

Levi continues to mark a trail of welt-worthy kisses along the length of her left hipbone. As he nears the center, Mikasa bites back a whine.

“We—we should shower,” she murmurs. It doesn’t sound believable, not even to her own ears.

“Hn.” Levi pushes her bent knee to the side, spreading her legs and admiring the widened view before resuming his marks along the top of her thigh. Mikasa takes in a sharp breath of air.

“We should shower soon,” she amends, breathy and weak-willed. 

She can feel the curve of his smirk as he nears the inside of her thigh. For a moment he doesn’t answer, pushes her knee up higher for a better vantage point.

He pauses briefly, only enough to answer in-between a bruising kiss and sweeping tongue. “We will.”

Breathless— fisting the sheets next to his head. Mikasa strives for sanity despite the madness he insists on with his tongue.

“When?” One syllable, but swallowed up with her next moan.

“I already told you.” His hand leveraged around her throat tightens as he nips, then he suctions onto the last juncture of sensitive skin between thigh and outer lips.

Her breath hitches. “After— after you…”

Levi hikes her leg up higher and trails his mouth lower. “Every fucking inch.”

Mikasa wilts.

.

.

_“I don’t—... I remember these were mine, but I don’t remember wearing them here. I don’t remember much of being here.”_

_A lengthy pause. “... Do you want to?”_

_“... I want to remember you.”_

.

.

.

.

It takes a week. Seven days of sleep deprivation and tracking the time only when the sun rose and set. Mikasa thinks that Levi could keep going like this— she _knows_ she could— but what began as an inconsequential seed breaks through soil and starts to sprout. She’s curious about the future— wonders what a life on the coastline will look like for her.

For them.

Mikasa soon learns that _wonder_ cannot be contained. It spurs an endless cycle of inconclusive thoughts, takes up much more space in her mind than she originally planned to rent out to it. The sprouts grow wildly— like vines, they latch onto whatever surface is available to them and climb onward. Soon she can’t concentrate on anything else without thinking of it in relation to the coast. To their future.

Despite the lack of sleep and their exhausting activities, Mikasa wakes at some point in mid-morning with an immediate awareness. Even though Levi lies behind her, she can feel that he’s awake— the natural weight of his arm lays heavier across her side once he’s asleep. She thinks about realigning herself to fit snugly between his hipbones, or taking control of his hand to direct it between her thighs.

But the coast.

Their future.

“Levi?” Her voice rings out sharp and clear, too loud considering the time— or at least, their equivalent time of what feels like an early morning.

Mikasa is certain he thought she was half-sleep, but Levi doesn’t startle. He raises his arm higher to wrap around her chest and she brings both hands up to hold onto him.

Levi drops his chin into her shoulder. “Hm?”

For once, he sounds more tired than her. She is nearly distracted when Levi drags his bottom lip—slow and steady— over her bare shoulder and into the crook of her neck. It’s when she feels the start of a familiar kiss, one that will entirely distract her, that she interrupts him.

“When do we leave?” Mikasa asks him.

Levi comes to an immediate halt. He doesn’t withdraw, but remains paused— she wonders if it’s from surprise or thoughtfulness.

When he responds, he’s relaxed and quiet. “Whenever you’re ready.”

She isn’t expecting it to be a relief— but the tension leaves her shoulders. The vines unfurl with blooming flowers.

Mikasa leans into him, tilts her neck to look over her shoulder and see him.

“I’m ready.”

.

.

.

It’s a strange season for beginnings, an odd combination of settling into a new routine while preparing to leave it, but Mikasa harbors no complaints.

She hardly has any affairs to put in order— she owns no home, has collected little by way of personal possessions, and already resigned from her royal post. It’s as if there was a part of her that knew she never planned to stay in Mitras. That it wasn’t the place, or the time, to make it her home.

Levi never settled into Mitras but still has more arrangements to finalize. Financial investments, leadership over the orphanages and poverty relief projects, selling his home, and a half-complete renovation project Hange had roped him into during their last birthday.

Mikasa helps with packing up his house. Unlike her, his wardrobe is far more extensive, and just like her, he kept all the possessions that belonged to fallen comrades and lost friends. It takes her an entire weekend and several yards of linen to properly wrap and crate Erwin’s collection of wine.

She packs the items from Levi’s study next— awards, commendations, and a collection of important papers and books. Then, she boxes up military memorabilia and tools from the basement. There are more of Hange’s belongings than his in the guest bedroom, until she finds a loose photograph with well-worn edges at the top of the closet.

In what looks like a decrepit part of town—the Underground, she’s certain— there’s an adolescent Levi squished between a grinning girl with two auburn-haired ponytails and a tall, blonde boy with a serious face. Mikasa doesn’t ask him about them, but she leaves the photograph on the nightstand next to his side of the bed.

The next morning she wakes up alone— he’d said something about another early hour financial meeting— but finds an old leather journal on the nightstand next to what has become her side of the bed. It has water-damaged pages and faded ink, but the succinct entries tell her enough to situate the boy and girl in the photograph as an important part of Levi’s life.

That’s how he tells her about his time with Isabel and Farlan. There is no entry that dictates why it came to an end.

When Levi comes home by mid-morning, shedding his coat and carefully removing his boots at the front door, she has finished reading the old journal. There are a thousand and one questions she wants to ask, but there’s only one that defines all of them. It’s the one she cannot get herself to speak aloud.

Before he rounds the corner, she silently greets him— intent only on what might be a morbid mission. Mikasa doesn’t care.

There’s no kissing for preamble. There’s no foreplay. She just pushes him against the wall in the front room and dutifully pulls his pants down.

It doesn’t take long to get him hard. But Mikasa makes sure not to rush after that.

When she finishes— when Levi is finished— she remains on her knees. The one hand she used for leverage against his lower abdomen is still covered by the pressure from his palm overtop of it. His other hand remains tangled into the now disheveled braid at the base of her neck.

It wasn’t touch that she wanted, it was the sound that she needed: Levi’s rapid breathing, and Levi’s vigorous swearing ( _fuck, Mikasa)_ , and Levi’s guttural groan from the base of his throat. The sound of Levi _living._

Tears start to prickle at the corner of her eyelids and she sucks in a deep breath to stop them. The unspoken question weighs on her— her forehead falls against the top of his thigh.

In slow, careful movements, Levi adjusts his pants and slides down the wall. He retakes her hand— uses it to pull her into a more comfortable position. They sit on the floor for another painful moment of silence. Mikasa hates to break it.

“What happened to them?” Her voice is quiet. She already knows.

“Killed.” Levi doesn’t flinch, but she does.

Mikasa swallows hard. “Titans?”

Without looking at her, he nods. His thumb runs over the top of her scarred pointer finger, not with intent but from instinct. Mikasa cannot prevent the one tear that slips down.

“You’ve lost everything, _everyone_.” Her words are too brittle— they break.

Another tear, then another— insubordinate traitors.

She expects he’ll brush her off with a reminder that she has lost the same. Instead he leans forward. Levi brushes his lips over the right corner of her mouth. He must taste the salt— from her tears and his come.

“Not everything.”

He presses his lips firmly to the side of her trembling lips, but if it’s meant to be a kiss, he doesn’t finish that either.

_Not everyone._

.

.

They don’t need an excuse to spend most of their time indoors together, but the first cold snap of winter provides one. The simultaneous establishing and dismantling of routine continues.

Levi always wakes first. If she’s conscious enough to catch him before he leaves the bed, she’s rewarded with thoughtless and languid sex—the sort that makes her feel drunk from sleepiness and stimulation. She makes a habit of forcing her tired eyes open and propping up on at least one elbow to ensure she doesn’t miss out on the opportunity. When they finish and he leaves to make tea or breakfast, she slips back into an even sounder sleep.

One day at a time, the predictability of nightmares cease to exist. Their routine of waking her with terror is interrupted by this new schedule with Levi.

Breakfast rotates from fruit and toast to eggs and bacon. Dinner is whichever recipe Mikasa randomly recalls and whatever fresh produce she finds at the market, but they cook it together. Their appointments— and their distractions from them— differ every day. There are plenty of _distractions._

Everything else has consistency, a sense of structure that adds needed stability for both of them. They take their tea on their own time in their accustomed schedules. Levi tries to do laundry every other day, but Mikasa prefers to do it. She doesn’t see the necessity in straightening and ironing all clothing articles, but Levi sets out to do so after lunch. Most of their tasks and previously independently conducted routines are rearranged into a shared collaboration.

There is only one aspect of his schedule that even she cannot change or distract him from— though admittedly, she knows better than to try.

Levi cleans the entire house immediately after dinner. No matter that he tidies up after every task and never leaves a mess in its place; he goes on with wiping surfaces and scrubbing floors like it hasn’t been done in weeks. She remembers like it was yesterday the first time she realized even _after_ he commanded their squad to do deep cleaning, he would go through it all over again himself. At least, the first time she realized his compulsion for it was not only as a means to distance himself from his life in the Underground.

Mikasa only offers once to clean the house for him.

“I have to.” Sharp and convinced. Then, she sees him falter—just a hint of sadness in the crease of his brows. Quieter this time, but no less certain, he repeats himself. “I have to.”

She offers him a small smile. “Do you want me to help?”

Levi shakes his head briefly.

Mikasa brushes a hand atop his shoulder then and brings him a glass of whiskey later.

.

.

He takes naps in the afternoons. That is something new she learns about him, when she didn’t even realize there was more she would still get to know. His inability to stay asleep for long at night lends to a natural habit of resting for an hour by three or four o’clock in the afternoon. For Mikasa, it is the time she feels most energized. She honors his need for a quiet house and her own pent-up energy by working out in the backyard or running through the outskirts of the city. The crisp air and faded daylight make it all the more ideal.

Levi makes a habit of waking from his nap at the precise time she returns home to shower, oftentimes assisting in the removal of sweat-stained clothes to then join her. She doesn’t mind— with the glazed look in his hooded gray eyes, thrum of adrenaline still coursing through her, and natural lubricant of water, it’s her favorite time to drop to her knees and suck him off. Mikasa isn’t sure if Levi thinks of complex ratios, but she cannot _give_ without Levi _taking_ back twofold. 

Regardless, she searches for any opportunity to taunt or tease him. Yet the first time she plans to remark on his strange inability to snooze through one of her post-workout showers, she is interrupted. Levi apparently loses patience with the ceramic-lined limitations of a shower stall. He turns the knob to stop the stream of water and then pulls her up from her knees. He’s fast— too fast— and suddenly she is being carried.

Mikasa tries to remember the last time she was _tossed over someone’s shoulder_ — as a recruit in training? As a _child_? The shock of it—naked and vulnerable and confused— is the only reason she doesn’t pull herself off from him. 

Without toweling off and certainly without reservations, Levi tosses her onto the piles of unmade bed sheets.

“Levi— ...” But she’s not sure _what_ to ask him. Between the unrestrained use of his strength and deadly pool of hot mercury that has overtaken his irises, she certainly doesn’t _want_ him to stop. 

He promptly maneuvers both of her legs over his shoulders. “Mikasa.”

Levi doesn’t wait for her to answer— he doesn’t wait for anything. Whatever mood he is in, it’s not one that plans to waste time at all. His mouth finds her clit faster than she can disengage a thunderspear.

“Not fair,” she stammers. Her stubborn streak presents itself and she tries to reach up toward him. “I didn’t finish getting _you_ off— _ah_!”

Levi has learned her— all of _her_ — certainly enough to know what it takes to render her speechless. He holds her with bruising strength, an intense focus on suction like she’s never felt before. And he’s worked _wonders_ before.

“Go ahead.” He’s stoic but nearly muffled, still buried between her thighs. “But I’m not stopping.”

The flood of hormones, hot steam from the shower, and finesse of his tongue— for an entire moment she is too heady to be anything but overwhelmed. It takes her a full moment to understand the implication of his words. Then it crashes down onto her at once.

 _Walls._ Thinking about it could make her come.

Mikasa is nearly as strong as him. And he _is_ already trapped between her thighs— not that Levi protests. She wrenches the both of them onto their side and, taking a page from his book, Mikasa doesn’t waste any time. She immediately draws back enough to turn toward his waistline.

It forces Levi to temporarily withdrawal and the molten silver of their eyes clash between the layover of limbs. It’s brief and subtle, but she knows it when she sees it— his flash of surprise.

She runs her nose along the remaining water droplets of his inner thigh, near but not yet touching his hardness and her unfinished business. Mikasa’s desire to taunt— among others— has not diminished.

She steers her vision downward to acknowledge him. “Change your mind?”

 _There_ _it is._ The curl of his lips into a devious smirk— one that is reserved only for her and only for these moments. It’s enough to set her nerves on livid fire.

Both of his hands wrap firmly around her ass. The offended growl – _Fuck no –_ is buried into the center between her thighs.

Mikasa is capable of one last coherent thought before her undivided attention is given to learning his cock in her throat at this new angle. It’s not on her knees in the shower that is favored place to suck him off. It’s this one.

.

.

She never had the chance to finish her shower. When Mikasa returns to the bedroom— after a proper bathing and wrapped in a proper towel— she is surprised to find Levi still tangled in the sheets. His bent elbow serves as an additional pillow for his head while he stares blankly up to the ceiling, seemingly unbothered. By now, she knows better.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mikasa asks.

Levi blinks, but continues to stare at the ceiling. “No.”

Mikasa thinks for a moment. “Do you want to fuck again?”

That works. Levi drops his head over to look at her— there’s a quiver at the left corner of his mouth vying for the chance to smile. “Why, did I leave you unsatisfied?”

She blushes, then narrows her eyes at him. “ _No_. But that’s not why I asked.”

Levi lets out a breath— amused. Even though he shifts back to look up at the ceiling without any additional commentary, she feels a selfish hint of relief. Whatever is bothering him doesn’t seem to be something that she’s said or done.

For another moment Mikasa stares at him, uncertain how to offer a solution when the problem isn’t even apparent. But sometimes people don’t want solutions— only support and space held for them. This has never been her forte and she struggles with it now. Her mind continues to scramble for what _support_ she should offer and how does _holding space_ even work, with a man like Levi— from a woman like her?

Not with him, but she’s failed a million and one times to do it right before. She doesn’t want to fail anymore.

Mikasa takes her time to dress if only because he’s made it known that he enjoys watching her do it. Though there’s a chill in the bedroom, the common areas are flooded with heat from the fireplace, so she settles on a tartan shift dress.

She starts to exit the room. Once once foot is out the door, the non-solution finally comes to her with the inexplicable abruptness of a realization. It’s a simple one.

Mikasa puts her hands on the doorframe and half turns back to him. She doesn’t plan on waiting to see if he’ll acknowledge her, but he shifts to look toward her at once.

“I love you.”

She hasn’t told him so directly— that simply. And while she’s spoken the same formation of words to others before, it feels like it’s the first time she’s ever said them at all. There’s a different intent, a steadfast level of certainty— a confidence in reciprocity.

The gray of Levi’s irises always seem to shrink when he is surprised. She levels him with a prim smile and doesn’t wait for a response before leaving the room.

.

.

Levi cleans the entire house twice in a row that evening. It takes every ounce of her self-control not to stop him, or at least help him, but she tries desperately to _be supportive_ and _hold space._ She paces the rooms he isn’t cleaning in, unable to concentrate on any of her own chores or hobbies. It’s far earlier than her usual bedtime, but the sun has set so she turns in early with no actual plans to sleep.

It’s late when Levi comes up to the bedroom. It’s the first time she feels like an intruder— she’s in his house and in his bed. What if the space Levi needs requires her to not be in it?

Not with him, but that’s how it was before.

Mikasa keeps her eyes closed and reminds herself for the tenth time that he isn’t Eren.

Levi is too astute to think she’s sleeping, but she remains lying on her side under the warmth of the blankets and doesn’t turn when he enters. She listens to him; the shuffling off of clothes and creaks in the floorboard when he crosses the room.

Her eyes open when he takes a seat on her edge of the bed. She’s greeted with the broad expanse of his bare back directly in front of her. His _closeness_ is an instant relief. She hears herself exhale.

Mikasa pulls her arm out from the blanket and brushes the back of her fingers across his lower back, a silent greeting. Even without the touch she can see his rigid posture. Two rounds of cleaning, but still tense.

When Levi finally speaks, he’s still facing toward the wall. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

Something in his tone makes her frown. “Shouldn’t what?

He just looks over his shoulder with flat eyes— as if she should know. Another second goes by with her confused, but then she does know. Oftentimes they’ve stopped speaking mid-conversation only for one of them to pick it up at a later time as if it had never been interrupted, and this time is no different.

Except the last thing she said to him was _I love you._

She trails the tips of her calloused fingers onto the nodules at the base of his spine.

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t do,” she teases, but it is a careful whisper. “It never tends to work out for you.”

He grunts. “Stubborn woman.”

Mikasa bites her tongue, but the retort comes out regardless. “Stubborn man.”

Proving her point, he offers no other comments. Mikasa doesn’t think about holding space—he’s chosen to join hers— and she forgets about solutions, too— there’s likely none she can offer him. She just acts on her instincts.

Without any more hesitation, Mikasa pushes herself up to a seated position. She reaches over to place a hand more firmly on his back, settles it neatly between his shoulder blades.

The playfulness drops from her voice. “Please tell me.”

For a long time, Levi doesn’t move an itch and doesn’t speak. Beneath her palm she can feel his hard musculature actually tense further.

“It was a dream,” he answers eventually, devoid of all emotion. “You were pregnant.”

Her lips part— _Oh —_ but then no sound comes out. Blind panic sears through her, not at the possibility of it being real in current circumstances, but at the general content of the conversation and any of its implications. She’s confident with her choice of birth control— the government didn’t allow for a co-ed military without having _that_ particular issue taken under diligent care— and Levi knows it. 

If he isn’t bothered with worry about that, then why be bothered at all?

She takes her time to think, to let the panic fizzle out and fade. She could ask him about the past, about the family he does not have, whom he lost even before he could write about them in journals. But what she has learned about hope is what she has learned from him. Looking forward to the possibilities in the future tends to provide far more than one can expect from the certainties of the past. 

Mikasa lets her hand slide down the length of his back. With her heart racing, she licks her lips and swallows the last of her nerves. She doesn’t feel shy, or nervous, but aware; aware of the significance of her words.

“I would like that. Later— one day—... I would like that.”

Levi tenses, barely finishes a sharp exhale before scolding her. “You’re supposed to slay monsters, Ackerman. Not bed them.”

She understands immediately, even when she doesn’t want to. 

They have seen true friends— beautiful, fragile humans— pulled out of the napes of monsters. And they have looked at who they thought were friends with trustworthy faces— _masks_ — only to find the monsters that hid beneath them. While the nuances Levi refers to are more complicated than that, she knows with certainty which end of the human-to-monster spectrum he falls on.

No, Levi isn’t bothered at the thought of her being a mother, but him being a father.

Mikasa wraps both arms around his rigid frame and props her chin onto his shoulder. She breathes out her quiet words into the warm, vulnerable skin of his irrefutably human neck.

“Monsters don’t scrub imaginary blood off of the floors every night.”

It takes a full moment, but beneath her hold, she feels it when Levi finally relaxes.

.

.

_“One day?”_

_She takes a breath first. “Y-yes. One day... Do you—would you... one day?”_

_“... One day.”_

_._

_._

.

It is an ordinary day in their increasingly ordinary life together. Mikasa is almost home from her late afternoon run when she remembers that Levi asked her to bring in more firewood once she got back. She nearly forgets until she reaches the start of the pebble path leading up to his front door.

Mikasa redirects herself to the side of the house— doesn’t bother to unlock the fence to the backyard but simply propels over it— and does her cool down exercises in front of the tidied stack of logs.

Once finished, she gathers several logs, tucks them squarely it into her hip, and starts up the stairs to the back porch. Then she notices it.

Noise— too much noise. The low treble and high pitches that accompany a horde of laughter. A flurry of movement behind the glass door that leads to the living room— several bodies and bright colors. Familiar faces. Balloons.

_Balloons?_

Mikasa almost drops the firewood.

She doesn’t have time to be grateful for the extra moment of self-preparation that entering through the back door has provided her. It’s only sixty seconds, and sixty seconds is not long enough.

“She’s here,” Connie hollers. “Turn around!”

Sasha shrieks.

The small horde comes bursting out onto the porch. There are far too many unexpected faces staring back at her, but it’s them who appear more surprised: slacked jaws and saucers for eyes.

With a quick scramble of fast whispers and clamoring gestures, her friends all shout in an attempt at unison.

 _"Surprise!”_

Mikasa blinks. Hange stands to full attention at the front and center, a bottle of champagne prepared in hand with sparkling excitement shimmering from their glasses. Sasha almost bounces from glee, both hands clasped and tucked to her chest. Connie is beside her, the most ridiculous grin on his face bearing more resemblance to his younger years. Jean laughs, one hand sloppily lifting a full goblet of ale before he rushes it over to her.

Connie darts forward next. He slings an arm over her and she is effectively squished between him and Jean. Excited, Connie offers her a mischievous wink. “Well, safe to say we succeeded in surprising you, eh?”

Sasha squeals, launching herself forward to disentangle Mikasa from the other men’s grip. She guides Mikasa’s elbow to bend and ropes her arm through. “Oh, we sure did. Congratulations on your retirement, Mikasa.” 

She is whisked inside. Overwhelmed first at their excited chattering, and then at the sight of the transformed living room, Mikasa marvels at what has been done in less than a hour. Tri-colored streamers, abundance of balloons, and mess of confetti— Levi must not be here if he allowed this, allowed _that_ to litter the floor.

But then she spots him in the far side of the room, leaning against the wall’s alcove with his ankles crossed and arms lazily folded. 

“You had to come through the wrong door,” Levi disparages. 

She gives him no credit for that, only stares at him with her panicked thoughts. _You weren’t supposed to allow this. You were obligated to stop this._

He smirks, unafraid of the silent but no less lethal threats being hurled at him. Levi lifts his chin to direct her attention back to their friends.

Mikasa is led by Sasha toward an equally eager Hange, who wiggles their one good brow with a conspiratorial smile. “Shall we pop the champagne now?”

“Yes, yes,” Sasha answers, holding onto Mikasa tighter. 

Mikasa hasn’t said a single word or expressed an ounce of their shared excitement, but none of them seem to expect differently. It gives her time to take in the rest of her surroundings: a table filled to the brim with varied appetizers and desserts, more than one glass bottle of her preferred wine, and an unreasonably elegant three-tier cake with buttercream frosting. “Retirement -- hip hip, hooray!” is spelled out in handwriting that looks suspiciously like Levi’s neat print. 

Imagining Sasha forcefully guiding Levi’s hand to spell out “ _hooray!”_ while he scowls in pointless reluctance finally forces a tepid smile out of her. She accepts the flute glass that Jean swaps out for her untouched ale, but she remains overwhelmed by the rush of touch, noise, and kaleidoscope of colors. Everything exists in a blur around her.

Yet Sasha’s touch doesn’t waver, Connie’s grin won’t falter, Jean remains steadfast in his own self-induced joy, and Hange appraises her with a knowing if not maternal smile. 

“Would you like to do the honors, Mikasa?” Hange offers, but already they’re handing over the bottle.

“Oh,” Mikasa mutters, the champagne bottle now in her hands and all sets of eyes squared directly on her. “Oh, I’m not sure…” 

Overwhelmed is an understatement. There is both a vibrant sense of _too much_ and the unavoidable strike of _not enough_ — she feels the absence of Eren and Armin the most in moments like this, events like this one.

 _They should be here._ Why _aren’t you here?_

Grief is a fickle bitch. She comes and goes as she pleases.

Mikasa starts to feel light-headed.

Suddenly there’s a strong, familiar hand resting over hers. Mikasa quickly looks up, uncertain how and when Levi came to be standing on her other side. She meets his stone-gray eyes, surprisingly warm and slightly amused. There’s a busied room around them, but he looks at her like she’s the only one he sees. She focuses on him, on his touch, and starts to stabilize. 

“Here. I'll do it.”

Her tense shoulders relax immediately, and Mikasa easily hands him the bottle of her celebratory champagne, grateful when the crowd’s attention steers toward his direction. 

The room stops spinning. She feels both of her feet on solid ground. 

Levi directs the bottle toward a wall devoid of potential targets, opening the champagne with an expert flick and resounding _pop!_ The cork goes flying and both Connie and Jean scramble for it, declaring it is some important memento.

Hange chuckles whole-heartedly and Sasha goes to collect the rest of the flute glasses.

Everyone is focused on Levi about to pour the champagne when an interruption comes from the front door. 

“Don’t tell me I’m late.”

Mikasa would know the voice anywhere— she’s spent almost all her recent years within arm’s reach from it— but she’s too startled to believe it until she sees it. Turning from the commotion, she turns to look behind her.

Historia. 

She’s almost unfamiliar, dressed in civilian clothing, hair tossed into a casual ponytail, with no crown and no guardsmen. Mikasa knows they must have been ordered to wait outside. Historia closes the door behind her and steps forward. 

“Your Grace,” Mikasa starts, and she and the rest of them begin the formality to bow. 

“No. Just Historia tonight,” she says sternly, and then smiles like a decade hasn't even passed. 

Approaching Mikasa, she tilts her head and looks up to the taller woman. “And if you’re moving to the coastline territories, then you’re no longer one of my subjects. You’re my friend.”

Mikasa smiles faintly in return, at a loss for a worthwhile response. She nods deeply. “Friends.”

Historia passes a warm touch onto her forearm and then turns to the champagne. She takes the bottle from Levi’s grasp, indulging in her temporary shelving of authority to take on the role of serving the others.

With the rest of the group distracted at the rare appearance of their old friend and Queen, Mikasa has an opportunity to take a seat at the dining table and gather her bearings.

Levi notices and starts to approach her, but she glares at him. _You could have at least warned me._

He’s unrepentant. Approaching her without hesitation, Levi stands beside her chair. One of his hands floats to the top of her shoulder before he leans down to speak into her ear.

Too stubborn to acknowledge him, she looks on ahead.

“Don’t worry, brat,” he murmurs, and her eyes unwillingly flicker over to him at the sound of his low timbre and dark tone. “I’ll make it up to you later.”

Gooseflesh rises on the nape of her neck. She turns up to him, their cheeks brushing against one another.

“That a promise?” 

He smirks again, but the sight of it disappears from her line of sight when he starts to lean upward. Levi pauses at her temple, either a brief kiss or a soft exhale— _“Yes._ ”— and then he stands again. 

Champagne is poured for and brought over to Levi, then Mikasa.

“Best for last,” Historia explains. 

Mikasa stands, watching the fizz of bubbles almost topple over her glass before she looks back up to her friends. 

They look to her with no expectations for a speech let alone a declaration of gratitude, but the generosity of their love and friendship is fully on display regardless. Willing her hands not to tremble, Mikasa lifts her glass.

If possible, the grins in the room grow wider, more laughter immerses the crowded space, and a jostling of excitement leads to moving balloons and spilled liquor. 

“To Mikasa,” Sasha announces first. 

There’s a chorus of _To Mikasa!_ repeated by the surrounding company and she tries not to flush. Searching for stability, she turns to Levi again. His smirk softens into something close to a smile and he brings their glasses to touch with a soft _clink._

“To Mikasa,” he repeats last, quiet enough it might only be her who hears him.

She finally caves to the pressure of a burgeoning real smile. Mikasa lifts her glass a little higher, watching it slip from Levi’s glass, and then she brings the champagne to her lips.

“To all of us,” she says in response. 

Her Ghosts make rare appearances these days, but she silently toasts them, too.

Mikasa sips on her champagne, finding it unnecessary to put down the glass in order to count how she has more friends than can be counted on a single hand.

.

.

It turned out not to be an ordinary day, but she is grateful for it. Mikasa sits cross-legged on the sofa with the buzzing warmth of liquor coursing through her system. Everyone else has left and she watches Levi assiduously clean up the party’s mess. There’s something strangely erotic about watching him move around on his knees, mumbling obscenities to the confetti. Or maybe it's the memory of his whispered promise from earlier. 

Once he’s closer, Mikasa raises a brow. 

“So then,” she challenges. “How are you planning to make this up to me?”

Levi shoots her a half-hearted glare.

“I think it’s actually you who owes me. I’ll never be able to get all of this shit up,” he mutters, distraught at his latest failed attempt to scoop up the stubborn confetti.

She laughs, relaxing further into the sofa. “Oh no, you deserve that.” 

He sighs, frustrated with defeat, and drops the rag he’d been holding.

Levi crosses the few remaining feet to come toward her— never getting off of his knees. His visual disdain for the confetti is almost immediately replaced once he stops in his kneeled position before her. Even though he is no more sober than her, his eyes sharpen onto her, lethal as ultrahard steel.

Mikasa feels her spine straighten even before he lays both hands onto her knees.

“I do plan on making it up to you.” The same dark timbre as earlier— laced with intimate implications.

To make his point, Levi pushes his hands from her knees and slides them down her inner thighs. He stops midway, though, in order to ask a question.

Except now Levi is serious, not playful. His penetrative gaze nearly sears her. “What do you want?”

Her breath hitches.

The _way_ he says it, and _how_ he's looking at her when he asks. She knows without a shadow of doubt that whatever she says to him, he’ll give it to her. Give anything— everything— to her.

It’s a tectonic shift. Words that could be spoken do not compare in the slightest to seeing the truth of them on display. Levi’s devotion— he’s devoted. It's spelled out so plainly on his face. 

She doesn’t realize until now that she subconsciously retired her grandiose appreciation for devotion, even before the day she buried Eren. To be devoted, to love whole-heartedly— it was a weakness, it was a folly.

Not when she sees it from Levi. He’s the strongest and most capable person she’s ever known. And he’s chosen her. He’s choosing her.

There has already been an overload on her sensory input. Her heart is already too full. She is inebriated enough to think it honestly, but not enough to communicate it properly— _I have been so afraid to give you everything, but I have wanted to— Gods, I want to, Levi._

Mikasa leans forward. There must be something that Levi sees or senses in her, because he doesn’t continue pursuit with his hands but lets her lead instead. She catches the length of his jaw in her one hand and captures his lips next— Mikasa kisses him slowly, deliberately. With exaggerated pauses in between one shift of their lips to the next, their breathing occurs together in the same time and space.

_Everything. I will give you everything._

When she withdraws, she knows that Levi understands. For a long moment there is no need for words or touch— only the opportunity to sit together on this new alignment of tectonic plates.

Mikasa leans back into the sofa, effectively breaking their trance and the significance of their silence.

“What I want,” she begins, teasing with a false demand. “Is both a verbal and written confession that your precise handwriting skills were utilized for icing the cake." 

Levi grimaces. His grip above her knees tighten. “It was done under duress.”

She laughs, reaching for him again. Her knuckles brush over his cheek. “And what do you want?”

Levi seems to think about it for a moment. “An official royal decree immediately banning the use of microscopic colored papers at any and all festivities without explicit permission granted from the owner of the premises.”

Mikasa doesn’t bat an eye. “Okay. I think I can cash in a few favors. Anything else?”

Levi warily appraises her. She grins—an acknowledgement of their playful game— but then she becomes serious. The remnants of her smile remain as she stares at him, thinking again of what went unsaid.

“ _Tch_.” Levi pushes himself upward and kisses the corner of her mouth.

.

.

_“Time.”_

_“Time?”_

_She has always wanted forever, but never been given it._

_"You asked what I want. Just— time._ Enough _time with you.”_

_“Hn.” Spoken into a kiss. “That’s the plan, brat.”_

.

.

Surrounded by a denuded living room that is filled to the brim with high stacks of neatly organized boxes, Mikasa lounges sideways on the chaise sofa with another one of Levi’s books. Today is the last of several meetings with the bank. Everything he has earned and saved, he’s taking with them to the coast.

She quickly ascertains that what she has picked up is less of a novel and more of a manifesto. The front page is thick ivory paper with bold cursive letters: _Consent of the Governed by Harlo Alistair MacIntyre._ The name is familiar, but she isn’t able to place it until a quarter of the way through it.

Around the same time, the tell-tale signs of Levi’s arrival sound off behind her. The careful open and close of the front door. Shuffling of the coat and stacking of his boots. She is too absorbed into the passionate rhetoric of the author’s statements to see whether Levi plans to go for her or the tea kettle first.

_“The power of kings, queens, and magistrates is nothing else, but what is only derivative, transferred and committed to them in trust from the people, to the common good of them all—"_

A shadow looms over her and answers her unarticulated question: her, not the kettle. When her eyes don’t lift, Levi takes a patient hold of her bare ankles swung off to the side of the chaise.

_"... in whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and cannot be taken from them, without a violation of their natural birthright.”_

Mikasa finishes the paragraph and looks up. “Do you know this author?”

Levi thoughtlessly rubs circles on the inside of her ankles. “Harlo? Yes.”

She lifts a brow. _First name basis?_

“He’s a terrorist. The Queen had him exiled. I tossed him out of the throne room myself.”

Levi seems amused. “I knew Historia was obligated to sentence him with treason. I didn’t realize you were the one to physically remove him.”

Mikasa looks back down at the manifesto. She’s developed a peculiar admiration for the author’s rhetoric and feels a pang of regret. “Yes. I think I broke his wrist on accident.”

For some reason, Levi starts to laugh. It almost alarms her; she drops the book into her lap and warily appraises him. “What?”

The circles and runes he draws on her inner ankle are replaced with firmer massaging at the base of her calves. She wonders if he can feel the tension— she skipped her usual run in favor of reading.

“He’s a friend,” Levi tells her, and she can hear the rarity of his smile even in his words. “A good friend.”

Her eyes widen. “What do you mean, he’s a good friend?”

Levi seems to deliberate but she isn’t stupid— he knows the answer and is considering how to placate her.

“Go on,” she prompts.

“We’ll be working together on the coast. Needless to say he’s looking forward to meeting you— at least he thought he would be.”

Her shoulders deflate. She falls backwards into the cushioned arm with a frown. “Great.”

The nearer the reality of their move becomes, the more intimidated she feels. Everything she’s done— who she has been— doesn’t seem to fit into the quaint lifestyle and radical beliefs of what exists on the coast.

Sensing her concern, Levi shakes his head.

“You don’t have to worry. Harlo’s not the type to hold a grudge.”

She slides her tongue across her teeth inside of her mouth and attempts to clarify her thoughts.

“It’s not just that— just him. It’s all of it. I’m a retired soldier. I’m – I’m quiet and strange. People tend to feel uncomfortable around me.”

And her, uncomfortable around them. 

Levi doesn't agree. “The people on the coast are far more understanding than those within the walls.”

He should know, after all. They took him in, accepted him, and now, even cheer for him.

“They’re going to love you,” he continues, solemn even as he continues to casually massage into her calves.

Her words are meek— barely a question. “How can you know that?”

He answers, as blithe as ordinary. “Because I do. And they trust me.”

Mikasa stares at him, at his blasé words and thoughtless focus on the muscles in her leg.

“Say it.” Then, she swallows. “Actually say it.”

He blinks. When his lids open, he’s looking back at her frozen features.

Levi quirks a brow.

“What— that I love you?” Like he’s clarifying his preference for white over brown rice.

“Yes. That.” Her words are quiet, woven into the spaces between her breaths.

He continues to massage, battle-hardened hands climbing higher to the thickest muscles in her calves.

“Alright.” He presses the pads of his fingers in deeper, uninterrupted. “I love you.”

There’s a sort of deadliness to his serious gaze that is contradicted by his continued nonchalance.

“Oh.” 

The way he looks, how he sounds, when he tells her— it is the same as yesterday, the same as last month, the same as last year.

“Oh?” He repeats, mocking her.

But he’s jovial, kneading into the crook beneath her knees with his brow still partially lifted.

She blushes. “You know I love you, too.”

The way she looks, how she sounds, when she tells him— it will be the same tomorrow, and next month, and next year.

.

.

.

.

There are only a few days left for them in Mitras. Though she thought she was prepared for awhile now, she becomes overwhelmed at how much left there is to do. Mikasa makes an effort to track down the Queen and each of her friends. She knows it is not a permanent goodbye, but it feels like the last time she will see them for too long and at too far of a distance. It feels like lasts with each of them.

She purchases greasy food from the market and sneaks it into the Queen’s personal quarters: grilled teriyaki chicken and lo mein noodles, a guilty pleasure for Historia. They eat from the cheap take-out containers on the expensive fur rugs of the Queen’s bedroom floor, talking and laughing like cadets in barracks who never yet met a titan.

The Queen sent Mikasa gifts as a formal thank you, but she has yet to thank Historia.

“You gave me purpose when I… when I had none. When I had nothing. I could never repay you.”

Historia pauses with her chopsticks. “Your purpose should never have been tied to others, certainly not me. Any debt you feel you owe to me— well, seeing you find your own purpose— consider it paid.”

Mikasa cannot hide the grimace. She’s found love— but not her purpose.

“You’ll find it.” Historia leans over to place an affectionate hand on the top of Mikasa’s knee. “I’m sure of it.”

Mikasa is not sure, but she places her own hand over Historia’s in lieu of spoken gratitude.

Though she arrives to Hange’s shop without announcement, her old commander seems to have been waiting for her—Hange even accuses her of being late.

“About time, Mikasa.” Hange attempts to scold, but their faux animosity is diluted with a stunning grin.

“Good morning, Commander Hange.” Mikasa doesn’t bring her fist to the center of her chest, but it is no less formal.

“You really have to let the formalities go,” Hange tells her, waving a hand into the air for emphasis. “Especially given your newly established partnership. You don’t address him as Captain, do you?”

Before Mikasa can respond, Hange wrinkles their nose. “You know what, don’t answer that. I’d prefer not to hear if either of you has such a kink.”

She should have known this wouldn’t go without incident. Mikasa comes to stand before the sales counter and offers half a smile.

“Zoë,” she tries, the syllables strange on her tongue. “Or just Hange?”

Her old commander almost startles. “Well. One can always benefit from an additional friend. Hange. You can call me Hange.”

The other half of Mikasa’s smile tilts upward. “Alright then. Good morning, Hange.”

Hange grins. “Good morning, Mikasa.”

Mikasa leaves with a medicinal chest that weighs half as much as she does. She is grateful their old commander and Levi’s closest friend insisted on gifting it for free— and subtly included what appears to be enough birth control to last through the upcoming spring.

She regrets that she held any anxiety over how Jean would react to the news. They walk through the snow-covered city with hot tea and amicable conversation. He is as warm and friendly as always, but mischievous, too.

“You know, I had a feeling this day would come.”

She shifts a sidelong glance toward him. “Really.”

He nods. “Oh yeah. You know, there was a reason I asked you out every so often.”

Mikasa almost stumbles onto the cobblestone in her next step. Perhaps she let her guard down too soon.

Jean just laughs with good-natured ease. “Neither of you seemed to notice, but every time I did, the ol’ Captain would grind his teeth and you would look for him right after. Kind of hilarious, to be honest.”

It takes her a full moment to recuperate. She holds the tea close to her chest. “So you were never the willful idiot.”

“No,” he answers, a knowing grin. “You were.”

After another moment, Mikasa starts to laugh.

It makes sense to combine her farewells with Sasha and Connie at their shared residence, but as always, the other woman has good instincts and a gift in understanding Mikasa’s unspoken sentiments. Sasha shoves her and Connie out the door, postulating that the two of them should go have a beer together for old times’ sake.

Mikasa enjoys the familiar ease of conversation with Connie and even lets him win one of their three games of darts.

“She was always so mindful to take care of me,” Mikasa admits about Sasha. “Promise me you’ll return the favor for me.”

“Promise, ‘Kasa,” Connie says— but then he winks. “Think I can offer her a bit more than you though, if you know what I mean.”

If he thinks she’ll be indignant and slap his shoulder, he’s wrong.

Mikasa eyes him sternly. “You certainly better be. Walls know a retired soldier like her doesn’t deserve to have to fake it.”

Connie flushes red, stumbles over all the rest of his words, and then abruptly changes the subject.

The next morning, Mikasa shares an overly large breakfast alone with Sasha.

If someone had told Mikasa at fourteen that the ridiculous potato girl would be her closest friend and confidante over a decade later, she would have laughed outright. There are so many ways that life assaulted her with unforeseen circumstances. Her friendship with Sasha reminds her that some of those surprises are not cause for grief, but celebration.

“You can’t imagine how happy I am for you,” Sasha confides in a rare moment of seriousness.

Mikasa is startled at the sensation of stinging behind her eyelids. She wills there to be no formation of tears. “I’ll miss you, Sasha.”

Sasha grins. Her own tears form and fall without inhibition. “Oh I will miss you, too. You’ll come when we marry, won’t you? Both of you?”

There’s no engagement let alone a scheduled date, but Mikasa knows that it is a when not an if. She offers a rare smile and then an even rarer embrace. “Yes. We will.”

By the end of it, Mikasa returns home with red-tipped ears and wind tossed hair. She stands in the front room and carefully removes her boots, mindful of any dirt or debris. Their ordinary positions are reversed— Levi is seated in the chaise sofa with leaflets of papers and a cup of tea. 

When he looks up, her smile forms reflexively.

Levi quirks a brow— amused as much as curious.

“You’re happy,” he acknowledges.

“Yes.” Mikasa answers confidently, unwinding and removing her scarf.

“Why’s that?” Levi asks.

It’s no secret to either of them that they both thought the farewells would be difficult for her.

She unbuttons and removes her jacket next. “The last time I said goodbye to friends, it was at their gravesites.”

Mikasa looks up to find him watching her carefully, stone-still and serious. But her soft smile hasn’t dissolved. “This time I did it with friends who are alive— and I know I’ll see them again.”

They don’t consider themselves heroes. They don’t look into the mirror and see the faces of humanity’s saviors. But there are moments like this one, acknowledgement that the world is free of titans and safe to live in, that remind her that all of their sacrifices were not in vein.

“ _Tch_.”

Levi hides his smile in the next sip of tea and she goes to the kitchen to make a cup of her own.

.

.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow they leave for the coast.

Absolutely everything is packed, including the few books Mikasa had kept out for quieter moments. Even if she had them, she knows she would be too anxious to concentrate long enough to read them. When Levi left for breakfast with Hange, he asked her twice if she wanted to join them. Mikasa had brushed him off, but now she understood why he hesitated to leave her alone.

She tends to have delayed reactions to stunted emotions— heating gradually before reaching an abrupt boil. Levi always seems to have a better perspective in gauging the rise of temperature. 

Her mind races— twisting and turning that concept of wonder until it nearly feels like dread. She tries relaxing with leftover tea, but can’t remain still. She goes for a morning run instead of an afternoon one, but even the endorphins can’t cut through her panic. The escalation in her heart rate only seems to make it worse.

She feels physically ill.

A long shower and clean clothes doesn’t seem able to settle her nerves, either.

There is nothing to distract herself with in the barren household. Just a few stationary items left out on the kitchen counter— Levi promised to write out notes on the house's varying quirks and needs for Connie and Sasha.

Mikasa stares at the items for several moments, mostly because there is absolutely nothing else to look at, but then she remembers Levi’s old journals.

He stopped recording in them once he joined the military. She hasn’t asked if he started to write again in recent years, but she has a feeling that he did not. Time previously spent journaling is now dedicated to compulsive cleanliness.

Mikasa picks up the pen.

.

.

When Levi gets back to the house— the place he’s sold and no longer calls home— he can’t find her. She’s in none of her usual places, but then again, none of the usual places have their usual items. There is no chaise sofa to lounge on, no kitchen table to sip tea from, and no bed either—just a pile of blankets and one shared pillow.

He only calls her name once. A hollow echo bounces throughout the emptied house.

Levi wonders if she’s left— with or without intentions to come back.

It might be the latter. He told himself once before that her tendency to flee shouldn’t surprise him— that she was built for fight or flight. He starts to consider that it could be the reality now.

Thinking of her leaving should result in a fiery storm of chaotic emotions. Instead, it is as though everything he thinks, feels, and knows is wiped clean from his brain. There’s an immediate and all-consuming numbness left in its absence.

Levi walks back into the kitchen without really seeing, not that there’s much to see. Empty of furniture and devoid of foods, there’s just—

There’s no paper or pen. He has spent his whole life living either entirely alone or constantly on alert for intruders. Any and all changes in his environment are instinctively noticeable, even in a rare moment of inattention.

If she left, she may or may not have written a note. But he doubts that she would have taken stationary with her.

Levi tries one more time. “Mikasa?”

The next second hosts expected silence, but in the following one, ... 

“ _Out here_.” Words too muffled to portray a mood, but definitively hers.

The relief does not come all at once— it starts in the pit of his stomach and gradually releases itself from there. Levi exhales.

He finds himself stalking toward the glass doors to the backyard with an unreasonable amount of caution. Once he reaches the door, he pauses with his hand over the knob and first looks out to see her. 

Without furniture, Mikasa sits on the porch floor with her legs criss-crossed and back against the house’s outer wall. It explains why he hadn’t been able to see her from inside. The missing paper items are held assiduously in her hands. She’s oblivious— to him and to the world.

Her long dark hair is braided backwards, her new preferred style to keep it in control. Loose tendrils escape with the gusts of wind and she continuously pushes them back, but it doesn’t appear to bother her. She’s too focused on the papers— mostly thoughtful and reading, but occasionally propping them against her knee to write an additional note.

Levi studies the novel look on her face. Tries to ascertain the nature of her authorial affliction. The tense features he observed in her earlier— furrowed brows and tightened shoulders— now appear to be absent. She’s pensive, the pen often finding its way between her pursed lips, but there’s no other identifiable emotion. He knows the sight of her fear like the back of his hand— and this isn’t it.

He pushes the door open.

Mikasa looks up to acknowledge him— dazed even though she must have known he’d be approaching. Then she offers him a tentative smile, and for some reason it looks like she is worried about him.

Levi belatedly realizes that while he was focused on studying her features, he made no effort to school his own. He fails for indifference again when he forgets his ordinary routine to greet her— if not with a brief kiss, some thoughtless touch. 

Her words are tentative, but warm. “You alright?”

Mikasa is a warm person—a warm woman. She always has been, he thinks. It was dormant, but not dissolved— buried under childhood trauma, soldier’s garb, and a lifetime of sacrifices.

Sacrifices. There’s no hypothetical theory that Mikasa Ackerman is the sort to sacrifice everything for the ones she loves. It’s a well-proven and established fact.

Not for the first time since she came over with red wine and her fear of shipwrecks has Levi felt this— the unshakeable weight of guilt. Is moving to the coast for him and his aspirations just another sacrifice she’s willing to make for someone she loves— instead of for herself? 

It’s their conversation from that same night that comes to mind— perhaps because it is the one he found himself replaying over and over again in the days that followed.

_“I'm not entirely sure what I want to do next, maybe I'll always be too— too damaged to know how to think further than one day ahead. All I know is whatever I do, whatever days do come next, I need them to be with you."_

At the time, he had been too distracted to consider the entirety of her statement. The storm shook the house, they were both soaked from the rain, his cock was hard and throbbing, and she was wickedly amused with her own stubborn refusal to listen to him. In that moment, all that mattered was the latter portion of her words, the actions thereafter that solidified their commitment.

But he’s often thought about the former half in the quieter and calmer moments since then.

Levi doesn’t answer her question, but he looks at the papers she holds against her lap.

Mikasa turns to look at them, too. “Oh. I’m making a list.”

He pauses. “Groceries?”

It’s not the real question— there’s no chance the list is for the marketplace when their plan is to leave at dawn tomorrow.

She blushes. That surprises him— and in the void that was his numbness, the surprise feels sharp and important. He takes a few steps forward, which seems to encourage her.

Mikasa tucks another loose strand behind her ear.

“When I came back with the caravan, I asked Briella what she thought someone like me could do beyond the walls,” Mikasa starts, a pitch lower than her previous tone, another sign that she’s nervous. “But... I think I should have asked her what someone who is _not_ like me could do.”

Levi stares at her. It feels like he should protest—he _wants_ to protest— if she’s suggesting that there is something wrong or otherwise unwanted about whom she is and what it means for her opportunities on the coast.

But then she abruptly turns toward him again. The rose-tinted blush on her cheekbones and wistful speckles of lavender in her widened gray eyes give him pause. She doesn’t need encouragement— she’s already given it to herself.

“At least, not the version of me I had to be in wartime, and— and couldn’t _stop_ being, even afterwards,” she clarifies. “I think— I think if I’m getting the chance to start over, I would like to figure out what I actually want to do, who I want to be...

“Without fear. Without the need to protect others. Without anyone else’s expectations.”

Levi is wholly and completely entranced in her unfiltered considerations, but Mikasa seems to notice she’s rambling or spoken more than she intended. She reaches for her necklace— rested above her ebony turtleneck and settled squarely between her breasts— and thumbs the jade stone where it meets the white gold bail.

Her next words are several pitches lower. “Does that sound ridiculous?”

It’s easier to move—easier to be— without the guilt weighing on his each and every step. Levi crosses the remaining distance between them and takes the seat beside her.

“No.” It’s one mere syllable, but it rings out with an adamant authority.

Mikasa shifts to face him fully, papers pressed hard against her lap. “What do you think?”

He doesn’t reach for her papers or ask what she's written. The words she’s spoken aloud are telling enough. 

Another tendril of her dark hair escapes. Mikasa lifts her hand to catch it, but Levi beats her to it. He holds the strand between his fingers, considers her words from that night of fearing shipwrecks one more time, and then places it carefully behind her ear.

“I think you’re perfect.” Blunt and even— for Levi, sincerity and honesty are interchangeable.

Both of Mikasa’s brows lift upward— startled to the point of shock. The rosy hue from her blush deepens at once. 

“That—well, that isn’t what I meant, but—...”

Levi considers that he’ll have to compliment her outside of the bedroom more often if this is how out of sorts she’ll get. He almost lets out a breath of amusement, but he’s too focused on her initial request.

Though it’s just the two of them and there’s no need to whisper, he leans forward to find the shell of her ear. He speaks quietly— seriously— and wraps one hand over the one she uses to hold pen and paper.

“You’re thinking further than one day ahead— you’re not damaged.”

Mikasa inhales. _"Oh."_

Levi leans back to watch her. He doesn’t know—can only guess—at the content of her thoughts, but he sees them course through her mind in a whirlwind of chaos.

When she finally speaks, it’s a simple declaration. “We’re moving to the coast. To live by the ocean. Tomorrow.”

He nods. “Tomorrow.”

Mikasa reaches for him— traces the pads of her fingertips onto the length of his jaw. She stops only to cradle the side of his face. She’s nervous still, but something else— the something else he saw on her visage before she knew that he was watching.

Perhaps for the same reason as he did earlier, she speaks in a near whisper. “I’m excited.”

He realizes it— can see it in the shimmering of lavender in her expressive gray eyes.

Excitement. That’s what it was. Levi places his other hand on top of hers.

Now he knows the sight of her excitement.

.

.

_“Oi, Mikasa.”_

_“Mmm?”_

_“It’s time to wake up.”_

_._

_._


End file.
